I cannot claim to grasp much of the detail of all the drama now surrounding the EUro. This photo, taken by me yesterday, captures the feeling of it all quite well:
Click to get that bigger and more legible.
Is all this drama being cranked up to enable Cameron to take the credit from us Brits for bollocking up the Euro, and simultaneously to enable everyone else in EUrope to blame us? Just, as Americans say, askin’.
One little titbit of news that does strike me as particularly interesting is this, in the Wall Street Journal, about how various governments are quietly pondering EUro-alternatives. At the very least, someone at the Wall Street Journal is asking about alternatives.
It all makes me think of those bridges that Julius Caesar burned, so that his army then knew that they would either fight and win, or perish. Except that this time, various parts of the army are nipping back to the various rivers that they just might be wanting soon to be retreating across, and are quietly building bridges. Just as burning bridges changes the game, so does building them. Even thinking about building them changes things.
It sounds like business as usual, scaring the proles so they clamour to be let back in (or rather not let out – it’s BIG, BAD and S-C-A-R-Y out there).
And blaming him (iDave) for doing something he is not doing so there’s no danger anyone else might think of doing it as well as taking the pressure off him to do something he off course does not want to.
Tweedledum and Tweedledee
Whatever happens, the EU or its more comprehensive successor, will be going ahead.
All roads lead to Rome.
Something is very fishy here: Switzerland has just pegged its Franc to the Euro, and now it is looking for a “pegging alternative” – like, they really didn’t know how sick the Euro was?
Well I am delighted Cameron said “no” but… in truth he did so not because he wanted to (or even expected to) but rather because the Merkozy played their hand so ineptly that Cameron had no choice.
He will still have more than ample opportunity to sell out Britain to Brussels, as he has so often in the past, in the next few weeks.
The fact the JP Morgan Chase is publicly putting the odds of a Euro breakup at 20% is telling. That would have been unthinkable even a few months ago. My guess is that privately they’re putting the odds much higher than that.
Incidentally, it’s not just governments which are “pondering Euro-alternatives”. Major multi-national corporations are spreading around their cash to hedge their bets, and even domestic companies in Spain, etc., are moving cash to Germany in anticipation of capital controls. See this article for some details.
The collapse of the euro seems to be rapidly moving into the realm of the self-fulfilling prophesy. We’re all in for some rough times.
Alisa as you know it was NOT “Switzerland” who pegged the Swiss Franc to the Euro (the people were not even consulted) it was the local chapter of the international elite. The same people who broke the last link between the Swiss Franc and gold some years ago.
Who gets to control such things as Central Banks? The people who were “good students” at school and university. Need one say more?
The picture in Brian’s post also makes an important point.
Only in Britain are there large numbers of newspapers not under the control of “respectable” opinion.
The P.C. believe system is present in the newspapers (including supposedly conservative ones – such as the Daily Telegraph) but it does not yet have a monopoly – not total control.
In the United States only one major) (i.e. major metropolitian) newspaper (the Wall Street Journal) is not under the control of the left – it has many”School of Journalism” types working for it, but it is not totally under their control.
In Britain there are many such national newspapers – it is something that we can be proud of (although the establishment is working hard to destroy this).
In Europe (as in the major cities of the United States) newspapers are part of the “education” (i.e. brainwashing) process – they push establishment opinions (of the “right” or the “left” – but the differences are basically unimportant).
Should anyone doubt this….
Please name a major newspaper in another E.U. country that supports the independence of their nation?
Where are these newspapers in France and Germany?
They do not exist – just as anti E.U. (and other establishment elite projects) radio and television stations do not exist in Britain.
The objective is to make the newspaper like that also.
To make them all like the Financial Times, the Guardian, the Independent, the “I” and (at the popular end of the market) the Daily Mirror.
The other newspapers would continue to exist (if the plan goes as the elite wish it to), and they would still be “conservative” – but they would support pro E.U. (and so on) “conservatism”.
Presently the establishment “great and good” already control radio and television (along with the schools and universties) but they want it ALL – they will tolerate no dissent.
Including, in the long term, on the internet.
“Hate speech” laws and “net neutrality” (as a Trojan horse to get government control of the internet) are the plan.
It’s unbelievable how many puzzle magazines are available.
Wait, that wasn’t the point of the picture?
The Swiss linked their franc to the Euro because the former was rising so much relative to the latter that things were becoming difficult for Swiss exporters. It doesn’t matter for the Eurozone. Indeed, it might make things worse as there is now a strong incentive for speculators to pile into the franc at artificially low prices, in the hope that there is a binary event that would force a break in the link (as Soros did with the UK peg to the Euro) with a strong surge in the franc.
Say what you will about Sterling; the UK government has a lot of flexibility to deal with its fiscal and monetary challenges; probably not a bad place to put your money relatively speaking.
I see the Lib Dems are already complaining about Cameron’s choice (sounds like a movie title). This must indicate that something good was done.
LOL!
A little bit more on this.
http://www.businessinsider.com/sarkozy-the-risk-that-europe-will-explode-2011-12
The only way the Swiss Central Bank can “acquire an unlimited number of Euros” is by creating vast amounts of new Swiss Francs (from NOTHING).
Do people, at this stage, really need me to tell them this?
“We have got to destroy our currency – because if we do not our exporters will be hit…..”
The stupid swine.
It is very much the same thing as the constant demands (from virtually everyone) for the European Central Bank to “use all its firepower” to “save the Euro”.
This actually means “produce even more Euros” (from NOTHING).
As Jim Rogers said – his first reaction to such a use of “fire power” would be to sell every Euro he holds.
“We have got to destroy our currency – because if we do not our exporters will be hit…..”
Paul, that is exactly what China has done. They have tried to keep their currency weak at all costs, and to do that they have expanded their money supply to horrendous levels. (This also helpfully prevents their banks from going bust for the moment). As a consequence they have an absurd asset and construction boom, that will end badly.
The only question really is whether they have done this deliberately, whether it is about short term preservation of their political class, or whether they genuinely don’t know what it is that they are doing. (Of course, it is probably some combination of all three).