Not that my opinion really matters, but, I’m not sure if I like the picture of younger, smirking Ambrose or older, frailer Ambrose better. Or, for that matter, worse.
It’s always funny when you see photos like these updated because the changes usually happen many years apart and, all at once, readers are confronted with a much older writer behind the words they are reading. That’s why I don’t ever plan to update my pictures here at the blog that are now about five years old…
Anyway, one thing that hasn’t changed about Ambrose Evans-Pritchard is his dour view on the prospects for the euro, his latest thinking distilled in this story at the Telegraph.
Europe’s fiscal Fascism brings British withdrawal ever closer
The European Commission is calling for EU powers to vet budgets of the 27 member states before the draft laws have been presented to the House of Commons, the Tweede Kamer, the Folketing, the Bundestag, the Assemblee Nationale, or other national parliaments. It applies to Britain even though we are not in EMU.
Fonctionnaires and EU finance ministers will pass judgement on the British (or Dutch, or Danish, or French) budgets before the elected bodies of these ancient and sovereign nations have seen the proposals. Did we not we not fight the English Civil War and kill a king over such a prerogative?
Yet again we are discovering the trick played on our democracies by Europe’s insiders when they charged ahead with EMU, brushing aside warnings by their own staff economists that monetary union was unworkable without fiscal union. Jacques Delors knew perfectly well that this would lead inevitably to a crisis, but it would be the “beneficial crisis” that would force sovereign parliaments to submit to demands that they would never otherwise accept.
It comes as no surprise that Club Med debt and obstinance of the already austere Germans are at the center of Ambrose’s most recent complaint about goings on in Europe.
As usual, there are some harsh words for the European Central Bank and the Germans.
Why did the ECB pursue policies that were so destructive for the GIPS? Because it was helping to nurse Germany through its long post-reunification slump in Phase I, and then bowed to Germany’s phobia of non-existent inflation in Phase II from 2008 onwards. ECB policy was twisted from the start to help one (mentally unhinged?) country. Let us at least be honest about this.
I do not envy David Cameron and George Osborne as they navigate these lethal waters. As Bruno Waterfield reports from Brussels, they will face their first clash next week when the new Chancellor is presented with the Barroso proposals, that is to say proposals for a reversal of the English Civil War and the re-establishment of Stuart monarchical absolutism.
The truth is that no British government can ever put Europe on the back-burner and hope it goes away. It hits you in the face, again, and again, and again. This is why so many British ministers end up feeling a visceral hatred for the project.
In my view, the EU elites overstepped the line by ignoring the rejection of the European Constitution by French and Dutch voters, then pushing it through under the guise of the Lisbon Treaty without a popular vote, except in Ireland, and when Ireland voted ‘No’, to ignore that too. The enterprise has become illegitimate – it is starting to exhibit the reflexes of tyranny.
The moment of definition is fast arriving from Britain. The measures now being demanded to save monetary union cannot and will not be accepted by this Government, Nick Clegg notwithstanding. The most eurosceptic people I have ever met are those who have actually worked for the European Commission, though it takes a while – and liberation from Brussels – for these views to ferment.
The outcome – un véritable gouvernement économique – will put Britain and the eurozone on such separate courses that it will amount to separation in all but name. The sooner we get the nastiness of divorce behind us, the better.
Can you imagine what we’d be reading today if the British decided to join the currency union ten years ago when the euro (now trading at $1.24) was launched?
The odds of something in Europe collapsing, disintegrating, or breaking apart in some way seem to be going up by the minute.
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At the core of the EU is the loss of control by sovereign countries which ultimately means a loss of power by the people. Europe is on its way (if its not about there) to an oligarchy centered in Brussels.
That’s why I use avatars for my picture, I can look however I want!
Great to have you back Tim, enjoy the weekend!
Thanks. It’s nice to be back into the swing of things. It’s a beautiful 70 degree day in Montana and I just finished playing nine holes at the local golf course at a cost of about $15. Pretty sweet!
” I just finished playing nine holes at the local golf course”
Capatalistic pig
I always like very simple descriptions for complex problems, if you can find one. In this case, I’d like to propose one. FIrst, Europe is composed of culturally diverse countries; they all speak different languages, and Greece even has a different alphabet.
More importantly, their attitudes toward money are equally diverse. Issues of entitlement, work ethic, saving, consumption, taxation, entrepreneurship, individual freedoms, property rights, education, opportunity, class structures, multi-generational wealth are all wildly different in each of these cultures. Therefore things like productivity, return on capital, intrinsic profits, entrenched unemployment, pension funding, retirement age, perquisites, standard interest rates are all different, requiring completely different fiscal and monetary policies.
From this perspective it is obvious that a single currency is simply unworkable, even in good times. In a depression/recession it, with countries requiring rapid access to capital on their own terms, it’s even worse. They have to be able to alter exchange rates to mitigate credit crises like the one we are in.
How can Greece, with low productivity, poor infrastructure, and wildly different attitudes about retirement ages and entitlements etc. even come close to competing with Germany? Well, we now know it can’t. And, of course, the same goes for all of Club Med and even the rest of Europe.
This is why federalizing the EU won’t work either. The idea that Europe can become like the USA is ridiculous, In the US New York and California subsidize mid-western states like Nebraska. But last time I checked Nebraska still uses the same alphabet as NYC, mostly. We are culturally compatible, if not perfectly uniform. Even the deep south, which has a distinct culture and dialect is probably more integrated than Scotland is into Great Britain.
These differences are ancient, and are real and will not change at because some bureaucrat in Brussels fantasizes about a utopian future where all peoples are like Germans (Yipes!).
At this point, Every country should begin issuing its own currency, along side the Euro. Both will be legal tender in the issuing country. At first these new currencies will pegged to the Euro. But as circumstances dictate, the new currency can “float” up (for Germany) or down (for Greece & Spain). This is how the Euro should have remained long after introduction. Whether the Euro survives this arrangement is immaterial.
At the core of the EU and EMU is a vision that was born in the rubble left over from WW II. It was in the same vein as the UN and a Socialist World Government. At the time, sacrificing a small amount of sovereignty for peace seemed like a bargain. However, this led to the EU bureaucracy being stuffed with irrelevant old socialists, who are now totally out of sync.
Today, the great ultra-socialist experiments have all gone down in ruins. We got rid of them because they were dangerous and didn’t work. Well, their baby brother the EU, doesn’t really work either. Today, European peace is taken for granted, and the anachronistic socialist shackles are chafing. Federalizing the EU would be a big step in the wrong direction, and I don’t think it will be tolerated by the awakening European public. Intuitively, they know it won’t work.
It’s hard to argue with any of that – methinks the euro’s days (as we currently know it) are numbered.