WARNING Establishment Insider Economist: Crisis Coming for Euro

Kenneth Rogoff, Professor of Economics and Public Policy at Harvard University and recipient of the 2011 Deutsche Bank Prize in Financial Economics, who was the chief economist of the International Monetary Fund from 2001 to 2003, and is now leading the attack against cash, is warning that a crisis will hit the euro.

In a new essay published at Project Syndicate, he writes  (my highlight):

It is now fairly obvious that the euro was not necessary to the success of the EU, and instead has proved a massive impediment, as many economists on this side of the Atlantic had predicted. Eurocrats have long likened European integration to riding a bicycle: one must keep moving forward or fall down. If so, the premature adoption of the single currency is best thought of as a detour through thick, wet cement....

The question now is how to maneuver the EU out of the wet cement. Although many European politicians are loath to admit it, the status quo is probably not sustainable; eventually, there must be either significantly greater fiscal integration or a chaotic break-up. It is astonishingly naive to think the euro will not face further real-life stress tests over the next 5-10 years, if not sooner.

No doubt, Rogoff is warning about the developing crisis to promote "significantly greater fiscal integration" in the EU. He says such in the essay:

[E]urozone leaders would be better off taking action now, rather than waiting for the single currency’s next moment of truth. 

But such integration action is very unlikely to occur under the present climate with the strong anti-EU attitude amongst a broad segment of the masses.

Establishment Plan B is obviously to allow the crisis to occur and use the crisis to promote "significantly greater fiscal integration."

The Plan is, as Rogoff might say, set in thick wet cement,

  -RW