The Bullish Case THE EURO IS coming. More important, goes the bull theory, the euro will whip Europe into shape. Spendthrift nations like Italy, Spain and France have already been compelled, under the treaties establishing the currency, to hack bloated budgets and cut their borrowing, helping interest rates tumble across Europe. Next, overweight corporations, long sheltered from competition by a crazy quilt of local regulations and prices, will find themselves plunged into a bigger, broader market. Prices will fall, mergers will abound, industry will get more efficient.
Integration is the most effective insurance against a backslide into chauvinism and war.
Poland and Hungary are growing fast. Trade between Eastern and Western Europe is rising. That's the reverse of the 1980s, when the U.S. was No. 1. That's the Euro-phoria argument. Now come the bears.