Tag Archives: crisis
The Queen’s Question
“Why did nobody see it coming?”
Many DID see it coming, especially those involved in it.
So your question, M’am, is indeed naive.
“Why didn’t anyone do anything to prevent it?” would be a better question, to which the answer is:
- Those creating the problem were doing too well out of it to give a toss.
- The THREE THOUSAND people working for the FSA are presumably idiots – one has to ask what their point was – or is. Or did one or two raise doubts and then get told to keep their gobs shut?
- Gordon Brown studied history at university and had not a clue about management, finance, economics or indeed much else.
- His fawning acolytes, including the fairly odious Balls, did nothing either during thirteen years of binge, boom and humungous bust. This total failure was a combination of not daring to stick their head over the parapet, being cowards (the same thing) and incompetence.
I have my own question: “What % of the truly guilty have been punished in any way?”
To which the answer is – at a guess (and probably vastly inflated) – 4%.
The Trouble with France
“Gallois does not recommend reducing the size of the regulatory state which drains the private economy of wealth and innovative energy to finance the public sector on which political power reposes.”
He is an idiot.
The French govt is in a hopeless situation, truly dire:
A) They cannot reduce taxes quickly since that would increase the debt very fast; nobody believes that “growth” could take up the slack in the short term.
B) They COULD of course cut taxes if they cut expenditure, in other words, the size of the state. This is impossible in the short term (or indeed long term!), since it would mean sacking hundreds of thousands of their supporters.
So, they cannot reduce the site of the state without provoking union-led riots and possible social conflict.
They cannot reduce benefits for the same reason.
They cannot cut tax because the debt would soar and they’d lose their credit rating, putting up the cost of debt even more – welcome to the Greek death spiral.
It is indeed rather difficult to see what they CAN do, except leave the euro!! A spot of “Blood, sweat and tears” might do it, but that is a bit too Anglo-Saxon to go down well over there. Nope – there is no “magic solution”, as Hollande naturally implied there was in order to get elected. His solution is of course to raise taxes and work less. This is a cunning plan which even Baldrick would label as lunacy.
Still, nobody should be surprised at anything from a party which introduced the 35 hour week in order to increase employment. A brilliant wheeze, though of course reducing it to 10 hours a week would clearly have increased employment even more.The entire political elite in the tweedledee-tweedledum parties that have held power for decades needs exiling to Saint Helena or somewhere so that someone else can take over. Nobody could do worse.
But people still keep voting for them! AMAZING!! Even in Greece they voted for the same venal, corrupt and cretinous mob that got Greece into this mess. As they are reputed to say in Yorkshire: “There’s now’t so queer as folks.”
The ECB & QE
“Actually, the ECB is currently in breach of Article 127 (clause 5) of the Lisbon Treaty obliging it to contribute to “the stability of the financial system”. The first duty of every central bank is to avert disaster.”
Some bits of this are disingenous Ambrose:
A) Depends what you mean by “a central bank”. In the usual sense, the ECB is NOT a central bank, much as Borroso and the utterly incompetent, arrogant, undemocratic EU elite would prefer it to be.
B) Maybe this pseudo “central bank” IS supposed to “contribute” to “the stability of the financial system”. But “contribute” does not mean “ENSURE”. Neither does it mean “Pass the debt on to Germany and/or mutualize it” and so on.
As far as I understand it, the ECB is ALREADY acting OUTSIDE ITS MANDATE by doing what it has done. In other words, like everyone else, it has BROKEN THE RULES.
Frankly, I am tired of the rules being A) made without consulting the peoples and B) routinely broken.
Spain is in this mess because of the utter greed and corruption of Spanish banks and politicians allied to the surreal incompetence of the previous government – and of course of the bloated, wasteful EU.
(SIX BILLION EUROS AND COUNTING ON A FATUOUS AND USELESS DIPLOMATIC SERVICE THAT HAS PLACED THIRTY-SIX EU STAFF ON THE ISLAND OF BARBADOS.
THREE HUNDRED MILLION ON A NEW PALACE FOR A TOTALLY USELESS “PRESIDENT”))
Sometimes I wonder Ambrose what you exactly expect the ECB to do? Why SHOULD the Germans ruin their economy to bail out these surreal disasters down south? They will NEVER reform if they get bailed out. NEVER. And their economies CANNOT be forced into the straitjacket of the euro without political union and a REAL central bank, which NO SINGLE EUROPEAN HAS VOTED FOR.
Not ONE of the 450 million Europeans has voted for this project rammed down our throats by Borroso et al.
It is FASCIST, STUPID and ARROGANT BEYOND BELIEF.
“It’s fascism Jim, more or less as we know it.”
A large element of fascism is leaders not respecting or even caring about the will of the people, as is the case with the EU. There are COUNTLESS examples, the most blatant of which are the obligation to keep voting FOR various treaties till you get it right and the undemocratic dumping of “leaders” onto countries.
Then there is TREATY-CREEP – EACH ONE giving more power to Brussels WITHOUT the people’s accord. (Our own governments are in cahoots, Brussels being a great place for failed politicians to make millions as part of the cronyist musical-chairs merry-go-round.
Why are we “eurosceptics” so angry?
A) Before the euro, Papademos was Governor of the Bank of Greece charged with preparing Greece’s entry into the EU. There were strict criteria set down for countries wishing to enter, as economists KNEW that otherwise it couldn’t work. Actually, ALL REPUTABLE ECONOMISTS said anyway that it couldn’t work, but the EU and especially the then French and German leaders went away anyway, recklessly gambling with our money.
B) The financial stats Greece supplied were LIES. Ergo, Papadmos is a LIAR. Nonetheless, Greece was allowed in anyway. Actually, everyone KNEW it was all lies. They did not care.
C) Ten years or so later, the democratically-elected leader of Greece proposed a referendum in his country about euro membership. He was immediately forced to resign by the EU, France and Germany and the liar Papademos was dumped on Greece like some Nazi Gauleiter.This ALONE SHOULD result in the trial and imprisonment of all concerned for international gangsterism. However, Papademos is of course an EU ECB-cum-Goldman-Sachs crony, so of course very PC.
They are undemocratic zealots. And THERE IS NO NEED FOR A USE. Canada, Switzerland, Norway, Singapore et all are ALL perfectly happy as they are. I do NOT want to be ruled by a German-dominated government from Brussels.
Oh, and clock this from Jean Monnet, who of course is a HERO for the Brussels zealots:
“Jean Monet, the founding father of the European Union, had a very particular vision of Europe’s future back in 1952, and he expressed it in a letter to a colleague on 30th April that year: “Europe’s nations should be guided towards the superstate without their people understanding what is happening. This can be accomplished by successive steps, each disguised as having an economic purpose, but which will eventually and irreversibly lead to federation.”
“Not in my lifetime”
”There will be no eurobonds as long as I live.”
On the face of it, it’s a potty statement. OK, there’s the proverbial bus she might fall under, but surely she should have said: “As long as I am Chancellor.”
Still, nuances aside, will AT LAST Borroso get the message or try YET AGAIN with his eurobonds”?
Hollane is reported to have given up on eurobonds and now going for ‘eurobonds-lite” or “eurobonds by another name” ……
This is of course par for the course in Euroland. If it’s really a bailout but you don’t like to admit it then you call it something else and so on.
Still, Merkel and the dreaded “markets” seem to have sussed out this particular nonsense.
The thing which one struggles to understand is that Spain et al want eurobonds to bring the cost of borrowing down. A pleb would ask: “WHY DON’T YOU JUST STOP BORROWING?”
I think the answer is that they need to borrow to cover current expenditure, and if there is anything more insane than that I would really like to hear it.
Letter to van Rompuy
Dear Mr Rompuy
As a European taxpayer I write in the hope that you may be able to answer some questions relating to the use of my money:
The G20 Conference
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Can you please explain to me why you and Mr Barroso attended the G20 meeting in Mexico? The G20 is a group of states represented by Heads of State and Finance Ministers. Neither you nor Mr Borroso are Heads of State. You are functionaries. You have NO DECISION-MAKING powers. The EU is not a state. Why should the European Union be represented as a unit and not other economic groupings around the world?
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Can you tell me the total cost of your involvement? I know that in Brussels you have a staff of around 80 people and that you cost us well over €25 million per annum. I assume that your entire staff did not travel but would like to know how many did and what this cost us.
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The hotel where the G20 leaders are staying is said to have suites costing up to $3,500 per night. One assumes that people like Putin and others stayed in such suites, but I would be interested to know what the arrangements for you were. Normally – these matters having a certain symbolism – one would suppose that you also enjoyed similar accommodation, or did you try to save us money by opting for something more humble? As for symbols, you are paid around TWICE as much as the British Prime Minister (and of course A) pay little tax and B) enjoy innumerable expenses), which is clearly supposed to give a subliminal – or indeed not so subliminal – message that you are twice as important. This is of course ironic insofar as you actually have no importance or relevance whatsoever.
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Can you tell me why such a preposterously luxurious venue was chosen for leaders at a time of severe economic hardship for the people they represent?
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Finally, can you tell me ONE SINGLE DECISION or ADVANTAGE for Europe that accrued from your presence at the G20 meeting? Is there ANYTHING WHATSOEVER that has been decided or advanced that would NOT have happened without your presence? Please do not tell me you were representing the little countries of Europe, since everyone knows that all EU decisions are basically made by Germany and France. The rest do not really count and/or are treated with contempt, especially the UK – apart of course from its TWENTY MILLION GBP PER DAY NET which goes to pay your costs.
On a general note:
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Could you also tell me ONE SINGLE PRACTICAL ADVANTAGE TO THE EU that we (the taxpayers) get from your post? The EU is NOT a state and thus does NOT need a “President”. If it does, then ONE is already enough. As mentioned above, your cost to the European taxpayer is very large. Your palace in Brussels is reputed to have cost us THREE HUNDRED MILLION EUROS and counting, and I would like to know what REAL benefits the average European taxpayer gets for this absurd sum of money.
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While on this subject – and remembering that the EU is NOT a state – can you please tell me why there is a new Diplomatic Service headed up by Dame Ashton that has cost us SIX BILLION EUROS? All EU countries already have their own diplomatic representation, and so this EU body is utterly superfluous. The idea of spending this colossal sum on something completely unnecessary and all the more so at a time of economic meltdown is stupefyingly insane. Do you suppose that having 36 EU functionaries on the island of Barbados is in some way supposed to boost this “growth” that you are all yearning for in order to avoid the collapse of the EU? SIX BILLION EUROS could have gone a long way in training technicians to compete in the real world.
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You and the EU elite are on a self-confessed mission to create a United States of Europe. You yourself have admitted this. “No small state can survive alone.” Funny that you don’t seem to know about Norway, Switzerland, Singapore and many other small states that are doing quite nicely thankyou without the insufferable bureaucracy and cost of Brussels.
Finally, this current fiasco is the result of two things:
A) the basic structure of the eurozone
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As it was set up, your OWN ECONOMISTS among many others told you it COULD NOT WORK. You ignored them.
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Greece for a start was allowed into the eurozone on a PACK OF UTTER LIES. They NEVER met the criteria set up, even though these criteria would anyway not have been sufficient in themselves for the euro to succeed. Everyone KNEW the Greek statistics were lies, INCLUDING the then Governor of the Bank of Greece, Mr Papademos. NOBODY CARED. NOBODY RESPECTED THE RULES. You are ALL involved in a GIGANTIC lie. A lie, indeed, for which NOBODY HAS BEEN HELD TO ACCOUNT. Indeed, Mr Papademos – involved at the very centre of this lie – was later nominated by the troika to be PM of Greece, an act reminiscent of the Nazi habit of appointing Gauleiters to countries they invaded. Have you no SHAME about this, Herr van Rompuy? Do you not understand the ANGER of people like me about this?
B) The criminal (or what should be criminal) habit of European countries to over-borrow. This crisis has NOTHING to do with banks, ratings agencies, the British, the Americans or whoever today’s convenient scapegoat is. it is primarily the fault of idiotic national governments which have ruined their countries, of which Zapatero’s is a prime example. The EU DID NOTHING TO PREVENT THIS LUNATIC BORROWING. NOTHING to sanction the countries involved. What were the highly-paid MEPs doing to publicize the insanity going on? Ten years later and ONLY NOW you start to get serious. What was the POINT of you during these ten years?
To sum up, the euro was based on an unworkable plan implemented for purely political reasons by a privileged elite which has recklessly gambled with OUR money. Yes, Mr Rompuy, OUR MONEY. It ALL COMES from US.
Given the above facts, I have been waiting for months for ONE SINGLE WORD OF APOLOGY from people like you and Mr Borroso. But there is NOTHING. All we hear are endless demands for Germany to pay for everything, combined with blame tossed around at the usual suspects, who NEVER INCLUDE the EU elite. As for the Germans, THEY HAVE PAID THEIR DUES. They have paid HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS NET into the rest of Europe over decades. To get them to abandon the Deutschmark, they were PROMISED that this fiasco would never happen and that they would NOT have to bail out reckless countries, yet you and especially Mr Barroso KEEP ON about “eurobonds” despite Frau Merkel repeatedly saying “NO”. LEAVE THE GERMANS alone. If some Greeks are now waving Nazi flags about and blaming the Germans for all this then it is YOUR FAULT. YOU engineered all this. It is UNBELIEVABLE when you consider the self-righteous arrogance of your daily utterances.
European integration of some kind is a dream which I personally favour, but the actions of you and your political cronies in the various national governments have turned it into a nightmare. Any discord now arising between EU states is YOUR FAULT. And NONE OF YOU will be held to account and NONE OF YOU seems ever likely to apologize to the MILLIONS now suffering hardship because of the combined actions of the EU elite and stupid national leaders such as Zapatero and others.
No, Mr van Rompuy, you are not worth twice the salary of the British PM. In fact, I consider your cost to the EU to be fraudulent (though it is clearly not your fault personally – even if you seem more than happy to go along with it) and will be sending a copy of this letter to the Ombudsman, who is I believe supposed to investigate the improper use of EU funds. As I asked at the beginning, WHAT WAS THE POINT of your attendance at the G20? You have NO power of decision – it is all a massive power-building sham and fraud perpetrated on the European taxpayer. You may WISH the EU were a state, but it is NOT, and I repeat, NO SINGLE EUROPEAN HAS VOTED FOR YOUR OBSESSION, even though we are all PAYING for it.
I look forward to your response. As an EU taxpayer I feel I am entitled to know exactly how and why my money is being spent.
Yours sincerely
Chris SNUGGS
Who’s to blame?
The causes of this shambles are incredibly simple:
A) Politicians are in general feckless scum. They are presumably (mostly) fairly intelligent, so they should KNOW that you can’t forever borrow more than you can be SURE to be able to repay. In the old days this was known as “living within your means”, but this is a concept very much out of fashion, especially since Brown was given the keys to our money.
DESPITE THIS, to curry favour with their troops and ensure their reelection and thus access to the goodies that go with it, they CONSTANTLY overborrow and pretend it doesn’t matter. There is also an element of cowardice here, since they cannot bring themselves to say: “No, we can’t afford that.” Of course, as far as the PIIGS are concerned, they couldn’t EVEN bring themselves to say: “No, GERMANY can’t afford that.”
This over-borrowing cannot go on for ever, but in the Brown-Zapatero-Burlesqueonly era (not to be confused with the Dinosaur era, even if it felt a bit like it) the feckless, self-deluded and lying scum masquerading as “leaders” went totally OTT, thus leaving their countries in massive debt.
B) Many of the plebs (though not including those who said this would all end in tears and for their pains were often labelled by the unintelligentsia as “idiots”), connived in this delusional bingeing and gobbled up in their greed whatever apparent German-financed freebies that were on offer, such as retiring at 45, passing on your pensions to relatives when you died, having a so-called job for life, working 3 hours a day and so on (see Greece).
C) ERGO, as follows from the above, this crisis is NOT the fault of the following usual and convenient scapegoats, who have NOTHING TO DO WITH IT:
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capitalism
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the banks
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the ratings agencies
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the Americans
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the British
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not borrowing enough (this is Hollande’s current suspect, which I think you have to admit is quite funny in the circumstances – his remedy is like giving a drunk a full whiskey bottle.)
