United also has the largest fair-weather fanbase in the world. They go out of Europe for 5 years, all those fans from Asia and North America go poof. I hate that team.
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http://forum.juventuz.org/threads/16045-Bayern-envies-Juve-s-financial-resources!!
Just noticed this post under similar threads - pretty funny considering what's happened in Europe over the last decade. My favourite post:
"nothing much to talk about here...........
we are rich and bayern is jealous
end of story
mods close this thread"
Clearly a lot of it is economic. Italy and the rest of peripheral Europe were way too levered and during the Euro crisis a string of maturities for Italy and the default of Greece caused the borrowing costs to soar and the financial markets to panic.
I would argue though that Germany has benefitted incredibly off the entire situation and would willingly bail out peripheral Europe 1000 more times because of how beneficial the Euro is to its export driven economy.
A few reasons:
-Germany has become a flight to safety. It's healthy economy relative to the rest of Europe has driven a great deal of capital inflows.
-Germany's export driven economy thrives off the Euro. Germany's economy has been the most healthy of all of the Eurozone due to improving output. Normally this causes currency appreciation, but because of the Euro, this does not happen. As a result, German exports become attractive to other countries because goods are artificially cheap (GDP Growth). Imports become unattractive because other currencies are comparatively expensive, which drives domestic consumers to consume domestic goods, rather than imported goods (again more GDP growth for Germany). This causes a large current account surplus driven by the positive trade surplus (exports-imports). The main downside to an undervalued currency is that imports become relatively expensive.
-Germany as a result is growing, and the rest of the world is buying from them. At the same time, the rest of the world is giving it money at very favourable interest rates because Germany is considered safe compared to the rest of the Europe. This means: Cheap Capital + GDP Growth = everyone is well off, and unemployment is low.
-Peripheral Euro conversely struggled economically, which should result in currency depreciation. Unfortunate, the Euro prevents this. The result is that imports become more attractive. The countries begin to purchase from markets such as China/Germany, which hinder the domestic economy. Italian GDP struggles to recover since domestically the consumer isn't buying due to low confidence and businesses are buying from overseas. Countries aren't buying from Italy so exports suck because its goods and services are relatively expensive due to the Euro. Capital is relatively expensive due to higher leverage levels (its fault), and a stagnant economy (partially euro's fault/partially structural). This means: High cost of capital + No GDP growth = everyone struggles and unemployment is high.
The Euro needs to disappear.
A few sources:
http://inside.org.au/afloat-with-the-euro/
http://fortune.com/2011/11/14/why-germany-needs-the-euro/
http://www.economicshelp.org/blog/5464/economics/germany-and-the-euro/
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101157415