Can someone tell me what's going on in Europe (economic crisis)?

[Jen]

I don't read or watch the news (as ignorant as that sounds), but I want to start knowing more what's going on around me...what's going on with Europe and economic crisis? I keep seeing it on twitter's trending topics, and I am out of the loop...so could someone please explain it to me and sort of...dumb it down for my sake? Because I can read it online myself, but I just want a direct/more simple explanation from my fellow Y.A. members.

[Bookworm]

the guardian newspaper has a GREAT section on the Eurozone crisis. They also have daily blogs on what's going on.

[Report Monkey]

i don't pretend to understand all that stuff but what i can say is prepare for war..

glad to help..

[Josh W.]

Their stock marcket is plumiting & the euro is dropping in value. Their in a major finical crisis !

[Ghiz]

As an European, I'll try to explain how I view the entire economic crisis. I'm not an experts and I'll probably view things different then Americans or economic people.

Short answer: all the sudden there seems to be an economic crisis. People are scared and don't want to spend money. Stores and companies lose money and fire people. Jobless people can't find a job. EU leaders are to busy arguing instead of making a decision. And we have to cooperate because we have one coin.

Long answer: one day, I turned on the TV to watch the news (I recommend you to do so too, it's quite interesting). All the sudden I heard something about a mortgage problem in the US, or so.
Apparently banks had the some problem. People could easily get a mortgage but they probably can't pay it back. Because of this banks didn't and still will not give loans or mortgages easy to people. No money --> can't buy a house (nor sell because nobody wants/can't to buy it).

Banks were starting to have big BIG problems. Some banks were on the verge of being bankrupt (some did) and in my country when you have saving on an account you'll only get limit back from the government. So, the government bought some banks, with the money coming from us (tax).
Interesting to know is that many CEO's still earn millions.

Government had to cut/spend less. In the meantime it appeared some countries like Greece had spend to much. They had to cut as well. Many people work for the government. Like the police. Those are the people who get fired or will earn less. Those people can't pay their bills and finding a job is difficult. Then we have our students just done with their school and can't find jobs as well.

It was clear Greece had to be saved, so the EU decided to give them money (also paid from our taxes) and hoping Greece would pay them back later. Now, we realize we will never get that money back. The same story implies to Italy, Spain, Portugal and Ireland.

Hearing these things on the news, people will think I'm not gonna spend much money --> people won't buy things --> companies or stores will go default --> people will be fired --> people will spend less money --> (and we start from the beginning).

Even though there is an European Union, we are not one country. So in Germany there is less unemployment than in Spain for example. Because we aren't a country, we can't come with an agreement. I'd say Merkel (Germany) is the biggest boss and Sarkozy (France) is a good second boss, but it's hard to reach a decision with so many countries and so many different views. Because what is the best approach? Should listen to our people who are starting to get more and more anti-Europe? But with one coin, what choice do we have?

I'm sure I'm forgetting things and I'm sure there are mistakes. But this is basically this is kind of how I view the entire crisis. The biggest question is: why do WE have to pay for the mistakes of others, while they earn million euros each year?

[Bob]

In a "nutshell," there are TOO MANY people living off of the government, and TOO FEW paying taxes TO the government in most, if not ALL, of those countries. Their respective governments are having to cut back on the "handouts," and now the peasants (leeches!) are revolting--thus all of the rioting going on right now--PATHETIC!!! WARNING: If we (the U.S.) don't get our "stuff" straight, it'll be happening here, SOONER than you think, especially if Obama gets re-elected. FACT!!! Socialism has DESTROYED every society that has lived under it!!! Here we go again!