Why I worry about Grexit

The Greek people have been left shocked and confused, says Merryn Somerset Webb. Why should the markets be any different?

Two years ago, I interviewed Bernard Connolly about the eurozone. Given the title of the book he published 20 years ago The Rotten Heart of Europe I wasn't expecting him to be much of a fan of the way things were going. But it was still sobering. The people who built the eurozone cared nothing for economics, said Connolly. They cared only for politics.

The idea from day one was to put in place a mechanism that its architects hoped would eventually force full fiscal, and hence political, union, however painful that might be financially.

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.