A Perfect Storm is Brewing

[teamsaint]

This is a succinct piece.
Bit soft on the federal reserve, but very interesting.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/12/2011121874651469307.html

Its the outcomes that betray the purposes of those making the decisions............look at the type of governments popping up all over europe.

[aeolium]

I think this article powerfully states the case against the euro, at least in the way in which it was set up. There is also a BBC series on R4, Europe's Choice which is tracing the stages in the last 20 years or so by which Europe reached its present position - the first episode was yesterday evening. I think this history illustrates that idealism can be more dangerous than pragmatism and that although the idea of a European community was a good one after the disasters of two world wars, the rush to monetary union was not.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

that is a strongly argued piece aeolium and i am very inclined to agree that herr Kohl should be in the stocks under the Buttercross along with Sarkozy and Merkel ..

[teamsaint]

after the Xmas lull, its tin hat time.

I don't care what the pros and cons are about the EU and the euro, the sight of supranational government coming in via the barged open door of financial disaster is not a pretty one.

The greeks and others won't take this lying down.....and if we think things will be much better here, we are fooling ourselves.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

from here


GIPSI = Greece Ireland Portugal Spain Italy

the very notion of profligacy on the part of sovereign debt is propaganda .... the banks got all the dosh ..... [but the p word does fit the Greeks]

[french frank]

.... the banks got all the dosh .....

Our dosh, in the case of RBS. Mr Goodwin humbled?

[cloughie]

from here


GIPSI = Greece Ireland Portugal Spain Italy

the very notion of profligacy on the part of sovereign debt is propaganda .... the banks got all the dosh ..... [but the p word does fit the Greeks]

Profiglacy or Propaganda?

[mercia]

there was an odd discussion on the lunchtime news, where someone seemed to be arguing (Re Mr Goodwin) that people would now be reluctant to go into business now they know that if they do wrong (not necessarily criminal wrong) they might get their knighthood taken away, implying that people go into business solely in the hope and expectation of being knighted - it made no sense to me.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

that's the point of the current narrative .... to aim at running business in our society you must believe you will be paid buckets of dosh be knighted etc no matter how badly you do .... that is the essence of contemporary gangster capitalism ... you are rewaded for being powerful or famous not for what you do ...

[french frank]

Must confess the news stopped me in my tracks for a moment - the move seemed unprecedented. The killer, I suppose, was that he was knighted for services to banking

Now if it had been for charitable work ...

[scottycelt]

A slight diversion ...

I watched an American TV business channel today. It purported to show a roughly-sketched map of Germany which included the whole of France (honestly!), much of Eastern Europe, and even a small part of the SE of England, including London itself.

Italians , Spaniards and Portuguese will be delighted and no doubt much relieved to learn that at least their countries are apparently proudly independent of this extraordinary Fourth Reich. On the same channel later, a female announcer broke the news that manufacturing activity was increasing in the USA and Germany and even in the UK (her words).

This should give all Europeans a pretty good idea of the appalling ignorance that many in the US harbour about Europe, and also what real importance is attached to the 'special relationship' with the UK.

Those on both the Right and Left who are now gloating over Europe's current difficulties will be proved wrong. Furthermore, it was the inhumane and disastrous policies of both extremes that caused millions of needless deaths among all our peoples in relatively recent decades . Europe will not only survive, it will increasingly unite and ultimately play it's rightful role in the world, because, quite simply, it has no alternative, to borrow the admittedly well-worn phrase of a former PM.

Those who hanker for their own imaginary Europe will be swept aside and left behind in the inevitable tide of history... and If that is a 'Grand Design', bring it on!

Sorry about that, but all this anti-EU stuff we are constantly fed surely needs a bit of reciprocal balance ..

[Simon]

This should give all Europeans a pretty good idea of the appalling ignorance that many in the US harbour about Europe, and also what real importance is attached to the 'special relationship' with the UK.

Well, not really. It gives a good idea about the incompetence and shallowness of much American TV, but I expect most people have realised that anyway. In reality, as opposed to in scotty's imaginary land where the EU is wonderful and the US is bad, most of us who have dealings with the USA know exactly what the SR is about. It's not perfect and it's not free from squabbles and in my view it's one-sided in a lot of aspects. But it's there and it's worth having.

Europe will not only survive, it will increasingly unite and ultimately play it's rightful role in the world, because, quite simply, it has no alternative, to borrow the admittedly well-worn phrase of a former PM.

Those who hanker for their own imaginary Europe will be swept aside and left behind in the inevitable tide of history...

Good grief! Ein Volk, ein Europa! Ils ne passeront pas! Do you do Hollywood scripts, scotty? But of course there's an alternative. There's always an alternative.

Sorry about that, but all this anti-EU stuff we are constantly fed surely needs a bit of reciprocal balance

I don't think anybody's feeding it to us. It's sort of there isn't it? The whole mess, on the table in front of us, plain for all to see.

[teamsaint]

that's the point of the current narrative .... to aim at running business in our society you must believe you will be paid buckets of dosh be knighted etc no matter how badly you do .... that is the essence of contemporary gangster capitalism ... you are rewaded for being powerful or famous not for what you do ...

its an extension of the fact that most senior managers that I have met are really good at getting jobs as senior managers, but not any good at running the business.

[teamsaint]

A slight diversion ...

I watched an American TV business channel today. It purported to show a roughly-sketched map of Germany which included the whole of France (honestly!), much of Eastern Europe, and even a small part of the SE of England, including London itself.

Italians , Spaniards and Portuguese will be delighted and no doubt much relieved to learn that at least their countries are apparently proudly independent of this extraordinary Fourth Reich. On the same channel later, a female announcer broke the news that manufacturing activity was increasing in the USA and Germany and even in the UK (her words).

This should give all Europeans a pretty good idea of the appalling ignorance that many in the US harbour about Europe, and also what real importance is attached to the 'special relationship' with the UK.

Those on both the Right and Left who are now gloating over Europe's current difficulties will be proved wrong. Furthermore, it was the inhumane and disastrous policies of both extremes that caused millions of needless deaths among all our peoples in relatively recent decades . Europe will not only survive, it will increasingly unite and ultimately play it's rightful role in the world, because, quite simply, it has no alternative, to borrow the admittedly well-worn phrase of a former PM.

Those who hanker for their own imaginary Europe will be swept aside and left behind in the inevitable tide of history... and If that is a 'Grand Design', bring it on!

Sorry about that, but all this anti-EU stuff we are constantly fed surely needs a bit of reciprocal balance ..

I really cannot believe that the only possible future is in massive supranational states. in any case, they all disintegrate in the end. Who would honestly have thought in, say 1980< that the USSR would have unravelled so quickly?

[scottycelt]

I really cannot believe that the only possible future is in massive supranational states. in any case, they all disintegrate in the end. Who would honestly have thought in, say 1980< that the USSR would have unravelled so quickly?

Well.. certainly not so quickly, I grant you that, but Communism, like its twin-brother Fascism, was always likely to come a cropper eventually, like all nasty dictatorships. Fortunately the former did so relatively peacefully and for that we must thank former communists like the canny Gorbachev who saw the writing on the wall for the old Soviet Union and acted before it was too late.

I look forward to the day (even if I'm long dead ) when a fully democratic Russia becomes a leading member of the EU!