---
title: "Euro, ECU2 and Hamilton | Sami Miettinen | Negotiator 347"
summary: "A solo episode, made at the Sisäpiiri audience's request that Sami work through a theory without a guest to argue with. He reflects on monetary systems, the euro and the EU by way of the Hamilton musical in London. At its centre is the ECU-2 proposal from Libera's 2014 book: twelve countries entered the euro by tying their currencies to the ECU basket first, and ECU-2 runs that backwards. A floating currency is counter-cyclical and the euro pro-cyclical — Sweden and Poland took the winning position. The Hamilton half is about what a federation actually requires: a one-off assumption of state debts and a tariff-funded tax base, neither of which the EU has."
datePublished: 2025-08-20
dateModified: 2025-08-20
originalLang: en
section: economy
sections: ["economy","society"]
authors: ["Sami Miettinen"]
tags: []
canonical: https://ai.neuvottelija.com/ep347-euro-ecu2-hamilton-sami-miettinen/
---
# Euro, ECU2 and Hamilton | Sami Miettinen | Negotiator 347

# Euro, ECU2 and Hamilton | Sami Miettinen | Negotiator 347

> **Summary:**
> A solo episode, made at the Sisäpiiri audience's request that Sami work through a theory without a guest to argue with. He reflects on monetary systems, the euro and the EU by way of the Hamilton musical in London. At its centre is the ECU-2 proposal from Libera's 2014 book: twelve countries entered the euro by tying their currencies to the ECU basket first, and ECU-2 runs that backwards. A floating currency is counter-cyclical and the euro pro-cyclical — Sweden and Poland took the winning position. The Hamilton half is about what a federation actually requires: a one-off assumption of state debts and a tariff-funded tax base, neither of which the EU has.

---

## Key Themes

* **Euro, ECU2 and Alexander Hamilton:** Discussed from 00:00 onward.
* **The Hamilton musical and the founders' judgement:** Discussed from 00:49 onward.
* **Hamilton as a federalist: a strong dollar and the foundations of the Fed:** Discussed from 01:11 onward.
* **Finland in the euro against Sweden's and Poland's floating currencies:** Discussed from 02:47 onward.
* **The Covid support package and Finland's negative net position:** Discussed from 03:23 onward.
* **Alternatives for Finland's euro strategy, and the ECU-2 model:** Discussed from 04:08 onward.
* **ECU-2 against the original ECU; national currencies in parallel:** Discussed from 05:07 onward.
* **Lex monetae and whether an EU member may have its own currency:** Discussed from 06:07 onward.
* **Net wealth compared: Finland, Sweden, the US and Switzerland:** Discussed from 06:35 onward.
* **Floating currencies as counter-cyclical, the euro as pro-cyclical:** Discussed from 07:48 onward.
* **The IMF's SDR and where ECU-2 resembles it:** Discussed from 09:18 onward.
* **Hamilton's federal model: assuming state debts, and a strong dollar:** Discussed from 10:29 onward.
* **EU debt and the limits of Finland's tax base:** Discussed from 11:17 onward.
* **Trump's tariffs, and Hamilton's tariffs as a federal tax base:** Discussed from 11:54 onward.
* **The EU's carbon and digital taxes against a small budget:** Discussed from 13:00 onward.
* **The scale of the EU budget next to the United States:** Discussed from 13:53 onward.
* **Hamilton's solutions against the EU, and the zero-sum framing:** Discussed from 14:55 onward.
* **Finnish borrowing and the fiscal policy law being reformed:** Discussed from 15:27 onward.
* **Nordic debt levels compared, and where Finland is heading:** Discussed from 16:00 onward.
* **What to take up next:** Discussed from 16:37 onward.