at this, too. What a mess that will be...if ever the unwinding starts in earnest. Greece is already there, Spain, Italy and France are not happy being lorded over by the Germans and the US, either. Not sure how this would affect the US, however.

bail out their banks/government, et al, like the Bailout US Banks got. They are demanding payment which they know they can't make, thus, they are forcing countries to "sell off" their historic landmarks, etc.

The Germans are in the catbird seat here, holding the power of the Euro.

because they kept their own currency. The EU is such a complex monstrosity. I took a class on EU law through Coursera last year and it was quite interesting to learn about how things work.

to bolt...and the declared date of 2017 gives other countries some time to figure out a pathway out of the Euro, and perhaps the EU. Austerity has not been popular or palatable especially for the southern Europeans. Greece is the first, likely, to test those waters.

There's no harm to it.

The UK is not a truculent beggar state like Greece. The electorate recently gave the party most in favor of austerity a resounding victory. Britain's economy is going through the same slow but steady recovery ours is.

This referendum is naught to do with German financial hegemony over the Euro, barely felt and little discussed in the UK, but simple jingoistic xenophobia. Spurred on by fringe loons in UKIP, who more than tripled their support to 13% of the vote, simple-minded Britons blame the Poles and Romanians for the same things those in our Southwest, and elsewhere, blame the Mexicans, with all the same misplaced anger and facile reasons. It is EU regulations that force the UK to accept these economic migrants which has caused a mass demand for an exit referendum.

What will happen? Likely parallel to the Scottish effort. Overwhelming plebeian sound and fury suggesting an imminent breakaway, with anybody who understands business or economics playing along or playing mute to avoid backlash, and then quietly voting to do the sensible thing and stay. But then again with the far right's recent ascendance there, this one may be a bit more at risk, because even though the Scots may resent the English, they are likely to grudgingly admit a closer kinship to them than Britons overall do to Eastern Europeans because, well, there is a closer kinship there. Is there enough xenophobia to overcome hard data? Who knows in the end, but I hope not.