Breaking News, Germany to Leave the Euro This Weekend?

By: Mac_Slavo

The internet, and especially gold forums, are getting excited over the possibility of very big news from Germany this Friday.

As reported by a Zero Hedge contributor, a forum post at GoldLikeProductions from a user identifying himself as a Deutsche Bank employee, suggests that the big news to be announced this Friday as stated by German politician Gregor Gysi at a recent press conference may be that Germany will announce a return to the Deutsche Mark, eliminating the Euro as their country’s currency:

From a forum post by an Anonymous user:

I’m working at the Deutsche Bank in Germany. Today we delivered 1 container with new Deutsche Mark notes and new coins. I will present a photo from the new banknotes tomorrow morning. The curencychange will be the night from Saturday to Sunday 5/16/2010. On Friday, 19.00 GMT Angela Merkel the germany chancelor, will speach to the german nation.

This forum post, coupled with a page identified at Kitco.com (screenshot), one of the leading precious metals dealers in the world, that looks like it is being built to price gold/silver/platinum in Marks, has gold bugs around the world buzzing.

If Germany were to announce that they are pulling out of the Euro and switching back to Marks, there would be serious implications around the world. The European crisis would likely accelerate and last Thursday’s stock market crash would just be an appetizer for what we can expect around the globe come Monday morning. Gold would likely make a serious move to the upside as a result.

Dispelling the Rumor

We warn our readers that this may very well be nothing more than a rumor, and recent gold price action in the upward direction may be partly attributed to the aforementioned forum post and Kitco page.

Regarding the Kitco.com web page, the SHTF Plan research team utilized Archive.org, an internet archival web site that tracks web site pages over the course of the last 15 or so years.

The very same page which is being listed at Kitco with the following URL: http://www.kitco.com/market/dm_charts.html is NOT A NEWLY CREATED PAGE and has existed at Kitco.com for quite some time.

The page has existed at the exact URL address since before the Euro was accepted by Germany.

According to Archive.org, the Web Archive’s earliest listing for this specific URL dates back to August 12, 2000 and the oldest available instance of this page can be viewed here: http://web.archive.org/..

Thus, this is not a new development and the page was simply never taken down by Kitco.com after the Deutsche Mark was removed from circulation.

The fact that the only available news about the new Deutche Mark comes from an anonymous poster at an internet forum should further dispel this rumor.

How likely is it that Germany would drop the Euro?

While we do believe in the eventual destruction of the Euro and breakup of the European Union, Germany announcing that it will be dropping out of the monetary union and introducing a new currency over the weekend is unlikely.

However, for inquiring minds, we direct readers to a Financial Sense University article from April 2010 titled German Windfall Profits From Exiting The Euro:

Germany is a nation that fears inflation for good historical reason, and among the nations of the world, Germany places a particularly high priority on price stability.  Yet, so long as Germany remains in the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) with the euro as its currency, Germany may not be in control of German inflation.   In particular, the current crisis with Greece, and the crises that may follow with other nations such as Portugal, Italy, Spain and Ireland may prove disastrous for German investors and taxpayers.  For so long as it is in the EMU, Germany may have no effective choice but to bail out countries that have been running up huge deficits – despite Germany itself not having the economic capacity to do this for all of Europe on an indefinite basis, let alone the political will to do so.  These are among the reasons why in a letter to clients late last week, Morgan Stanley warned that Germany may leave the euro and the EMU and that investors should be prepared for this event.

If this event happens, it may create an enormous financial windfall for millions of individual Germans, as well as German companies, not to mention the German government. While leaving the monetary union is still far from certain as Germany also has strong economic and political incentives to stay in the EMU, in this article we will say “what if” and explore some of the startling benefits for nations and individuals of quickly exiting a failing monetary union – as well as the many perils.

It is not completely out of the question that Germany will decide to leave the European Monetary Union but remain an EU member. Obviously, if the German people (The #2 exporters in the world) are going to be strapped with bailing out Greece, the rest of the PIIGS and Eastern Europe, they may be much better off just cutting their losses and getting out now.

Friday will be an interesting day, but we’re not holding our breath. At this point, the world economic and financial systems are such a mess that even if Germany announces a switch back to the Mark, the end result globally will be similar to what will happen at some point in the near future anyway - panic, collapse and all the goodies that go along with that.

By Mac Slavo
http://www.shtfplan.com/

Mac Slavo is a small business owner and independent investor focusing on global strategies to protect, preserve and increase wealth during times of economic distress and uncertainty. To read our commentary, news reports and strategies, please visit www.SHTFplan.com

© 2010 Copyright Mac Slavo - All Rights Reserved
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