'Weak Sisters' Should Leave, Forget Bailouts: Opinion

The following commentary comes from an independent investor or market observer as part of TheStreet's guest contributor program, which is separate from the company's news coverage.

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- The "euro crisis" is worrying everyone. Concerns include the future of the eurozone, bank exposures, political uncertainties, and more generally, chaos. Little attention is being given to the problems facing the citizens of these countries and what can be done to ameliorate them.

The Problem: Unemployment

Table 1 provides data on unemployment rates. They are too high. Street demonstrations and riots have already taken place, and more will follow.

Why Are Unemployment Rates So High?

In earlier postings, I have argued that the "weak sisters" (Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain) should leave the eurozone because production costs in these countries are too high to clear labor markets. More specifically, the euro is too strong for these countries. It makes their imports too cheap and exports too expensive to reduce trade deficits and increase domestic employment.

Now in theory, this problem could be resolved if producers (capitalists and laborers) in weak sister countries got together and agreed to reduce their euro costs by 30%. In other words, if they all agreed to take a pay cut of 30%. But this will never happen. So how, realistically, can the "weak sisters'" costs be reduced so that their workers can find jobs again and their trade deficits become manageable via lower imports and higher exports?

To answer this question, I looked at what was happening to their currencies relative to the German Deutsche Mark before entering the eurozone. Data on exchange rate changes between 1990 and their entry into the Eurozone are given in Table 2.

From 1990 until Greece entered the Eurozone in 2001, Drachma declined in value relative to the DM by an annual average of 13.2%. As Table 2 indicates, the currencies of the other weak sisters also declined.

Why is this important? Because these "market adjustments" were appropriate corrections for the differences in costs and productivity as compared to Germany. This is no different than what has been happening between Japan and the US: since 1990, the U.S. dollar has lost an average of 2.7% annually to the Japanese Yen. That loss has allowed to U.S. to remain competitive on world markets with Japan.

>>An Open Letter to the 'Weak Sisters' of Europe