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October 30th, 2011 | 6 comments - (Comments are closed)
 ‘Why Britain Should Join the Euro’ – a pamphlet by Richard Layard, Willem Buiter, Christopher Huhne, Will Hutton, Peter Kenen and Adair Turner, with a foreword by Paul Volcker. One of the authors, AdairTurner, now Lord Turner, is interviewed in today’s Observer, which is where I saw the link. He has changed his mind a little since 2002, when the pamphlet was written, but not to an unseemly extent. Now Chairman of the Financial Services Authority, he is concerned about the current situation but remains confident that “sensible decisions are going to be made”. So there you are then. Cheer up! October 23rd, 2011 | 3 comments - (Comments are closed)
The principal argument I used to put which the pro Euro Labour, Liberal Democrat, CBI and TUC forces found difficult to counter was the simple proposition that joining the Euro was like taking out a joint bank account with the neighbours. You were likely to ruin a good friendship with them, when you fell to arguing over the size and use of the overdraft. This unfortunately sums up the Euro crisis. Greece, Spain, Italy and Portugal want to use the common overdraft or borrowing ability to excess. The Germans do not want to help pay the interest and sustain the joint credit rating, but they are being drawn more and more into doing just that. I like the joint bank account analogy. October 4th, 2011 | 6 comments - (Comments are closed)
It would (will?) be interesting to hear what our own Paul Marks has to say to in answer to this, from Ambrose Evans-Pritchard:
Clearly, Evans-Pritchard had in mind commentary like this (Paul Marks yesterday):
Evans-Pritchard, however, says this:
So, have things changed, or have they not? I agree about the USSR parallels in all this. But Evans-Pritchard’s reportage also reminds me rather of that vote of confidence that they had in the House of Commons, which Neville Chamberlain “won” in 1940, but actually lost. I remember once speculating, here, there or somewhere, that one of the many things that could reasonably be said to have caused Word War 2 was the failure of any sort of German Parliament to meet – circa 1939, and say, in the manner of a British Parliament: No! No more of this! That time, the idea was for Germany to conquer Europe (and much else besides) with armies. Now the plan is and has long been for Germany to buy Europe, and give it to … EUrope. But the price is again proving ruinous and the object being purchased is a crock. This time, the means are surely still in place, as they were not in 1939, for Germany to say: No! But, did they? And if not, will they? Over to you, Paul Marks. LATER: Detlev Schlichter agrees with Paul, using the word Götterdämmerung. Germany, he says, is finished. He also says this:
Indeed. September 30th, 2011 | 10 comments - (Comments are closed)
Only 85 members of the German Parliament support the opinion of the people against yet more bailoutsThe German people (like the British people and the American people) are overwhelmingly against the bailouts. But their opinion (like the opinion of the British and American peoples) has been ignored in the past – and vast sums of money have been spent. Today was a vote over whether or not extra hundreds of billions are to be spent – and to be spent by an European Union executive agency with arbitrary powers. At least 70% of the German people were against this – in spite of the intense propaganda of the establishment media. Yet only 85 members of the German Parliament voted to stop it. It is the end – not just the end of any prospect that people will really face up to their problems (rather than scream for endless bailouts), but also the end for any pretence that modern government is in any real sense “democratic”. It is not a sudden emotional whim of the people that has been ignored – it is the settled opinion (conviction) of the people, which has been held (in spite of intense propaganda against it) for a long period of time, that has been spat upon. “Vote them out”. How? Both the governing CDU and the opposition SPD voted for endless bailouts and arbitrary executive power. September 29th, 2011 | 24 comments - (Comments are closed)
The fallacy at the heart of this crisis is that every financial problem has a political solution. – Jeff Randall He’s talking about the euro’s problems, but the same fallacy is at work nearly everywhere. September 26th, 2011 | 11 comments - (Comments are closed)
One of the self-criticisms I hear a lot from Austrian economics devotees is that Austrianists don’t say what should now be done. They write book after book expounding what should not have been done, but most of their responses to the current mess consist of variations on the theme of: not that. Shouldn’t be starting from here. So, when I read a report like this one, I get interested. Quote:
Assuming that enough Swiss folks vote for such arrangements, will they do any good? Or does such politicking merely flag up the problem, without going any way towards solving it? No doubt the current Rulers of the World will disapprove of such contrivings and do all they can to abort them, but this kind of thing at least might give the rest of us something to vote for, i.e. against the current Rulers of the World. Mightn’t it? Something Must Be Done This Is Something Therefore We Should Do It is a powerful force in politics. Schemes like this partake of this force. At the very least, they challenge others to do better. My thanks to Steven Baker MP for the email that alerted me to this. It’s good to know that he is keeping an eye out for such things, don’t you think? September 4th, 2011 | 26 comments - (Comments are closed)
Andrew Gilligan, journalist, reflecting on the wider implications of the horror in Norway. I would add that security authorities should also not forget such threats as from remnants of the IRA in Northern Ireland, Deep Greens, and parts of the Far Left. There is, alas, plenty of fanaticism out there. I have a few Norwegian friends and they are, thank god, safe, but in a small country, almost everyone in that fine nation has been touched by this act of mass murder. By the way, do any Samizdata commenters know about what the laws are about firearms in that country? I am appalled at how easy it was for this man to kill so many without challenge for so long. But then this bastard had clearly planned out his attacks, knowing that it would take time for the police to get to the island. July 26th, 2011 | 35 comments - (Comments are closed)
In this, which is about some guys from Loughborough who have decided to mark cities (scroll down a bit) like they are undergraduate essays (Alpha+, Beta+, Beta-, etc.), NickM waxes lyrical about Prague:
But he adds a warning:
Well, EU membership doesn’t seem to have fucked London yet, despite decades of the EU trying everything they can think of to accomplish that. London, according to the Loughborough guys, is equal top (Apha++) with New York. NickM goes further. He reckons New York is overrated and has London top on its own, as the greatest city in the world “bar none”. He doesn’t say why, however. Personally, I love London, because I live here and I just do. But I do not know where I think it ranks in the great city stakes because I seldom leave it, and hence can’t compare it with other urban greatness contenders. I have been to Prague, which I thought was pretty good. The middle is amazing, wall-to-wall listed buildings, as we would say in London. As I assume is the case in Prague too, i.e. you may not smash it down and replace it with a concrete blockhouse, just because you “own” it. Which I understand. But the uninterruptedly historic nature of the centre means that nothing new can now be built. In other words, the centre of Prague feels like a film set, and will feel more and more like one as time passes. See also: Paris. July 14th, 2011 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)
James Bartholomew, author of the splendid “The Welfare State We’re In”, weighs on on the subject of Sweden, long a poster child for socialists and possibly, even a certain type of right-winger:
Another paragraph:
Read the whole thing. July 10th, 2011 | 7 comments - (Comments are closed)
“Will militant unions derail big fat Greek sell-offs on the rocky route to recovery?” sayeth the Telegraph. Well anyone buying Greek infrastructures with private money deserves everything they will get… it would be easier and probably less stressful to just flush the money down the toilet and call it ‘performance art’. Leave Greece to circle the drain as a prime example of Mencken’s observation:
Greece will just be the first of many as the vast ponzi scheme that is the ‘welfare state’ reaches its climax set to Bouzouki music playing faster and faster… July 3rd, 2011 | 5 comments - (Comments are closed)
… no, it was the highest institutions of the Netherlands who were on trial with their credibility and very legitimacy at stake. Although I am delighted he was acquitted of all charges, frankly it is a disgrace that he was ever put on trial in the first place for simply stating his views about Islam and multiculturalism. And the fact the BBC calls him ‘far right’ tells you nothing useful about Geert Wilders’ views but speaks volumes about the BBC. June 24th, 2011 | 22 comments - (Comments are closed)
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