This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Europe: denial or misplaced values?
Europe: denial or misplaced values? Europe’s problem is simple to see and it’s just as easy to see why all these fixes fail. When you fix the symptom you don’t cure the disease. In this case curing the disease probably will involve killing the patient (the euro). Competitiveness differences within the Zone are too wide and are too entrenched to deal with without undermining the very basis of the Zone, which is to defend the single currency. Letting currency (or country) parities readjust is the only real solution. The price level differences in Europe are so severe that they cannot be handled by ‘internal devaluation’ otherwise known as deflation. Asking a generation of people to undergo deflation to keep the euro intact is a bad case of misplaced values. And that is where Europe is right now. It is upside-down and backwards. It is no wonder Europeans can’t find a solution. You can go through the haystack with the best scientific equipment and powerful magnets but if there is no needle there you will not find one. And the EMU is simply looking in the wrong haystack because it does not want to, and the IMF does not want to, face up to the real problem.
It’s unsolvable in the context of a single currency zone. That’s what it is.
When economic forces are pulling your currency zone apart you can’t keep it together without stopping the forces that cause those tectonic plates to drift apart. Expressions of unity won’t do it. Raising taxes won’t do it. Big Bazooka funds won’t do it. The Zone keeps looking for a fix in the wrong haystack and that just won’t do it either. In the end to fix the problem you must break up the union.
Period.
It’s not because of costs or because it is better for country X.Y or Z. It’s because if EMU does not do this things just continue to get worse.
»
- advertisements -
should the global dollarzone - the main reason for the eurozone - change, then the whole premise of the EUR changes
but don't expect the premise of the eurozone to change before. it's all about the USD, the global reserve currency
the EUR is a response to the global fiat (thanks, Tricky Dick) reserve currency and the banking nexus it propels
Do you just make this stuff up as you go along, Ghordius, or do you really believe it?
The EU has been on the Vatican's drawing boards at the very least since Mazzini formed Young Italy in 1831 (and Young Europe in 1834), with a particularly heavy renewed push by Spaak, Rothschild and other 'Holy Roman Empire' sympathizers to form the European Movement in 1948 and Council of Europe in 1949. The European Economic Community (EEC) followed in 1955 and the EUR has been the constant subject of their dreams and manoeuverings ever since!
The 'European Dream/Experiment' has been on a long, slow and relentless march for a very long time, and totally independently of the status of the US dollar. And, just like the Soviet Dream/Experiment before it, it will fall back apart to its constituent peoples of diverse resources, interests and characters. Preferably, soon.
look, i-dog, I really don't want to fight this Vatican's drawing board part, whatever I say could be "tainted" for you by my origin and connections. I presume you are hinting to the Latin Monetary Union that failed because the blasted Vatican started debasing the silver coins. Which was not helpful.
Yes, an Europe engaged in industrial and trading cooperation without wars is a dream that has many fathers, and some of them were frocked, agreed.
In very broad brushes: we had the gold-backed British Pound as global reserve currency. Then WWI and WWII. Then at Bretton Woods Oncle Sam posed the question: why don't you use the gold-backed USD? hint, hint, your currencies are dropping the gold standard anyway. Right.
Meanwhile, between 1934 and 1974 for you Americans the gold-backed issue was moot, you were not allowed to own gold anyway.
When Nixon shocked us, we started to think what to do. Join the dollarzone directly? Nah, nationalists would hate that. Going back to gold? Nah, socialists would hate that. A currency multi-peg? Tried it, the problem is with politicians wavering and speculators armed with illimited banking funds like Soros, just as a notorious example.
So we came up with the EUR. And you know what? It's working as designed, so far... You see, for us evil europeans, gold and fiat go together, it's not an either/or proposition, it's a dance... what we want is internal price stabeeleetee so that our industry is not shipped to China. That simple, we have to produce and trade to keep our heads out of the water...
My feelings are complicated, Ghordius, because I have a great deal of affection for the people of Europe (have lived there, speak a few languages, and even married one!), but not for the central planners and their long-term aims. My beef is not with Europe, but with the European Experiment.
One does not need a monetary union to gain freedom of travel and trade across borders. One does not improve, nor harm, competitive advantage by merging with another currency. All the monetary union is accomplishing is centralising control over the disparate governments ... and thereby providing a means of income redistribution across cultural boundaries. That is its sole purpose.
Therein lies the seeds of discontent that will be its downfall ... because even lesser animals instinctively recognise when they are being short-changed by a self-appointed and greedy alpha male.
"...complicated". Well, as you know it's two clubs, the EU of 27 and the monetary one of 17. The EU has some boons, yes, and goes with that damned but necessary bureaucracy. I understand your qualms are with the EZ more than with the EU...
The way I see it is that in the US, the banking interests dominate politics and this goes straight into the monetary policy.
In europe, we have usually more industrial/commercial interests sharing politics with labour interests, and this historically went further down, with the governments dominating CBs and then Central Banks dominating the banking systems according to the political needs - an experience America in my understanding never made, your banking sector is politically much more powerful than ours, which are often seen as facilities. Deutsche is an outlier/exception in this argument, as UniCredit and a few other rebels.
I see Draghi, for example, brokering agreement between the CB chiefs who have clear (non-banking) political directives.
Nevertheless, I disagree on the purpose - particularly on the income redistribution, for this we have our cherished socialists in the direct political systems...
The EU is the ante-room to the EZ ... New members joining the EU are expected to have a scheduled path of budgetary alignment towards joining the EZ. Where referenda have been held, the votes have either been against joining the EZ or only narrowly passed (particularly in the north). If a super-majority were required for membership (as is generally required elsewhere for important 'constitutional' changes), there'd be practically no EZ members (and many fewer EU members, too).
The income distribution by the EZ central planners is across national borders (for example, from Germany to the Mediterraneans). The "cherished socialists" in the direct political system can only redistribute the limited funds raised within their own borders.
as such, a scheduled path of budgetary alignment does not sound that ominous to me, it's usually "spend less than you were used to", isn't it?
Personally, I would have preferred a much slower growth of the EZ, but I digress.
I'll take up my trusty invictus "parliamentary democracy Shield argument" for this:
- in order to join the EZ, the Government of the applicant nation has to apply. And it takes a while.
- in our parliamentary democracies, this Government has to be supported by a Majority in Parliament.
- our parliaments are elected in multi-party polls and represent the sovereign/the People (that's our system).
Ergo the nation in question has - if not a majority for the EUR, at least not a majority against the EUR.
:-)
What an utter disingenuous shitpile of words. i-dog, you apparently are a world-wide expert since you've read a history book and '(have lived there, speak a few languages, and even married one!)'. One time, I was stuck in Indonesia for like a month longer than expected, do you want me you to school you on how incredibly easy their cultural heritage is? Perhaps a run down on why their natural gas industry is booming unlike most of the Western world?
Stop diagnosing 'problems' not in your backyard you halfwit. What's evident from your posts is that you clearly have a beef with the Roman Catholic-like central planners who only exist in your clumsy analysis. Meanwhile you feign objectivity but only really spew historicism like so many here. Clearly the religious side of this continent triggers some personal conflict of yours.
I'd say you're the one here who has issues with triggers. Funny how all of i-dog's posts are civil, yet your responses continually degenerate.
Your emotions betray you. Which I guess is why I find your comments so hit or miss at different times.
Um, no. i-dog is delusional and deterministic, holding opposing ideologies that cannot be reconciled.
Civil? Forget civil when dealing with dangerously stupid ideas about life and reality.
You don't know where my "backyard" is, fuckwit! In fact, your trite response shows you know absolutely nothing about me other than what you have interpreted from one post.
'Do you just make this stuff up as you go along, Ghordius, or do you really believe it?'
He is partially correct, the monetary aspect is entirely correct. You can pull 19th century bullshit 'facts' all you want the reality is otherwise. Bilderberg was funded by a cia operative and has nothing to do what Ghordius wrote. Since you wish for it collapse 'preferably, soon' are you really laying on impartial facts or just exercising some wishful thinking?
Another douchebag Yank pretending to understand the intricate nature of all things euro. Best you STFU we already have Brusca spreading enough disinfo as it is.
I disagree, i-dog is very thoughtful on many matters. IMHO, he just does not consider that catholics behave as a minority in the US and as a majority in europe. big difference. and that they are scheming politicing bastards like all humans..
about Bilderberg, I have a completely different point of view on which I "take the fifth"...
It's not the "catholics" I have problems with, Ghordius ... it's the Jesuits-Sabbateans and their ideology of rule by the self-appointed "smartest guys in the room" (or "enlightened ones", as they like to describe themselves).
They are nothing but globalist central planners and are totally at odds with the natural human tendency towards diversity and self-determination within local, tribal, groupings that adapt to their local environments and resources.
The Pharisees have been continually trying this shit on for 4,000 years and I'm getting tired of it!
"The Pharisees..." lol, this takes me back to the times of my Jesuit indoctrination. The take-home message I remember was that Jesus tried to explain to the Pharisees that He put the principle of love first, and the sticking-to-the-intricate-rules second. If I remember correctly He called them the perfect, whitewashed and pristine graveyards of human morality. I think it was the passage where they challenged Him for mingling with women... Interestingly, Jesuit teaching about Him stress both His divinity and His humanity, in both positive and negative forms.
In this sense, we both hate the Pharisees, in all their forms, in all the ages... and I don't think they will ever stop cropping up.
pinning the NWO down with labels is no easy task. why? they infiltrate everything and everygroup. So people end up fighting endlessly about who is really behind all this mess, and whether it is just one ethnic or religious group. I have to say, it seems more accurate to group them more spiritual affiliation (even avowed atheists), and the only real way to judge that is by their actions. That said, it is very easy to see how through history, religious structures were used (all of them frankly), and in modern times, the banking systems. with the power to print money comes the power to control almost everything.
judge them not (beforehand - i.e. don't be prejudiced) ...by their fruits you shall recognize them? I'd say yes.
As opposed to what other form of rule that is so Holy? The Protestant 'Reformation' that ended up with a message of racial superiority of the Nazis? The degenerate ochlocracy of the Anglosphere's poor grasp of Antiquity's demokratia?
You have no answers. Best you stay silent.
I'm a voluntaryist ... no "rulers" are needed - other than those voluntarily appointed at a local level to deal with local problems and a measure of diplomacy (not imperial expansion).
Voluntarism (or free market capitalism, or anarcho-capitalism, depending on your dictionary) works just fine for smaller non-religious countries (like Iceland and the former Hong Kong), and was the secular framework implemented by the American Founding Fathers for the original 13 sovereign states of the Union (each of which was primarily founded by settlers and immigrants from 6 different European countries and a variety of "religions"...including catholics and protestants).
The modern world of high speed transport and communications, combined with the MAD weapons now at everyone's disposal, means that the imperial ambitions of any budding emperor can be put down at any time...once the armed forces of NATO have been returned to their sovereign states of origin and thence funded only by the residents of those states on an as-needed basis.
The days of imperial expansion are coming to an end. The European dream of expanding Europe to incorporate all of the former Soviet states plus the remaining countries of the Mediterranean rim will only come to pass over far more senseless bloodshed ... and that's certainly what they're planning in Brussels and Washington. Fuck them and all who support them!
i-dog, a small correction: the european dream of inviting other countries to join a club of sovereigns. where sovereigns can voluntarily join or leave.
It never works like that...see our voluntary merging in 1776. The "voluntary" part died 1861-1865.
I don't want to sound callous, but this is because the "voluntarists" and the secessionists lost a civil war against unionists, isn't it? It could have been the other way round, particularly if the european powers had intervened differently - which had a lot to do about the economy of that age.
What I mean is that those 100 years of "voluntary happy cooperation" you experienced could be easily a 1000 years here because of our longer separate history, the many languages, customs and peculiar regions we have.
and who plans for longer than a millennium - the time unit of visionary madmen? ;-)
'Voluntarism (or free market capitalism, or anarcho-capitalism, depending on your dictionary) works just fine for smaller non-religious countries (like Iceland and the former Hong Kong)'
Free market capitalism? Iceland as an example? Sweet Moses that is a some heavy stuff you have been smoking dog. Go ahead please and get yourself these to better understand your founding father's storytelling:
http://www.amazon.com/Super-Imperialism-Edition-Fundamentals-Dominanc/dp...
Even better if you find it a poor source and prefer the academic version:
http://www.amazon.com/Bad-Samaritans-Secret-History-Capitalism/dp/159691...
Great. Then you're going to have actually read something out of Iceland itself.
http://www.amazon.com/Independent-People-Halldor-Laxness/dp/0679767924/r...
A great testament to Icelandic 'Capitalism' of the anarchic kind, right up your alley. My most honest suggestion, stop listening to neo-liberally brainwashed Bjork and actually consider some sober sources.
One minor correction to I-dog defeats your whole argument (and as a fellow voluntarist I think it's appropriate, as I suspect that's it's what he intended to convey)
Now that is comedy. You're both delusional.
+55
Watched "Battle: Los Angeles" today on DVD. The ultimate "broken window fallacy" movie. LA economy gonna be rippin' after all that destruction.
Dear Mr. Brusca:
Given your last article published here on ZH, we would all appreciate it if you would address the following two articles:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/initial-claims-propaganda-101
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/inital-claims-soar-again-ninth-consecutive...
Yours very sincerely,
LowProfile
Edit: It's been two hours and... (Crickets...)
Bob. May I call you Bob ?
I don't know how many times Tyler and ZH discussed the European common currency vis-a-vis disparate countries with divergent fiscal requirements.
But you are not introducing anything that hasn't already been exhaustively vetted here already.
The fact that the jobs market is still badly sucking wind or that the MSM spins bad news as good news is a separate issue from whether or not the BLS is being purposely deceptive or fraudulent about how it compiles data.
I thought Mr. Brusca did a decent job of presenting his case in his last post but perhaps we’d all benefit from a more detailed presentation from both sides.
WTF dood..!
The BLS is the one doing the revising, not the Lame Stream Media!
Brusca's previous article was one big bash fest about not trusting goobermint data, to which I say LOLWUT
(BTW, it's been about 24 hours, and... Crickets...)