THE BIG FRENCH THREAD

[interestrateripoff]

So will the bankers succeed where Napoleon and Hitler failed and create a united Europe?

It's hard to see how they can contain this now.

Ultimately because of political fudging during it's creation the Eurozone brought in huge turds. Rather than allowing 3% deficits it should have been balanced budgets with a clear plan to pay off existing debts. Instead they fudged lied and committed fraud to get the Eurozone off the ground with as many members as possible.

The single interest rates was a massive flaw.

This situation could get very quickly out of control, once confidence evaporates it will be blind panic.

[non frog]

I'm not sure the bigot-fest that is the Mail is the mainstream but nevertheless the French economy is fair game as far as speculation is concerned. France has been over-borrowed for a long time and its entry to the Euro was fudged just as much as Italy. However without France there probably would have been no Euro to start with.

The Euro-sceptic fear of tax harmonisation is looking ever more likely. This from our local newspaper:

http://www.midilibre.com/articles/2010/11/27/A-LA-UNE-Les-buralistes-veulent-bloquer-la-frontiere-avec-l-Espagne-1464916.php5

The tobacconists are blocking the Spanish border on Sundays to stop people going over to buy cheap fags.

The logic is inescapable, but hey who knows? Logic and government rarely come into contact

[fellow]

Essentially IMO it is heading towards 'make or break'.

I'm hoping for 'break'.

[LuckyOne]

I have often wondered whether the whole EU experiment started because of Germany's guilt about their behaviour in the 1930s and 1940s.

My observation is that younger Germans feel less association with that past than older Germans. As time passes and the demographics of guilt shift, the changes in the population could eventually lead to the undoing of the experiment when enough younger Germans feel that the cost of European integration to them is too high relative to their decreasing feelings of guilt about the WWII era.

[sharpe]

I'm hoping for 'break'.

I am hoping for join - it is stand united or get taken over separately. that is the choice.

hopefully the UK will eventually join and become an equal member, rather than a poodle of the US.

[EUBanana]

I'm not sure the bigot-fest that is the Mail is the mainstream

Second most popular paper in England, and #1 is the Sun.

So... probably more mainstream than you are, it's fair to say.

[indirectapproach]

"I have often wondered whether the whole EU experiment started because of Germany's guilt about their behaviour in the 1930s and 1940s."

I suspect it all had far more to do with the Hun creating and accessing markets for his nik naks than his guilt.

[cakehead]

Either it becomes one country, fiscally, and Germany becomes the equivalent of London and the South-East in the UK, the major tax contributor, with the other countries contributing and depending to various degrees, behaving like other tax-dependent regions of the UK, France being perhaps like the Midlands; Greece, Ireland and Portugal being similar perhaps to Northern Ireland and Wales.

What a curious, depressing and misplaced analogy. How about London draining the talent that should rightly be spread throughout the country to ensure a vibrant and diverse nation, the home counties being the dormitory for the worker ants who service the nest in the belief they're at the centre of things, the Midlands being the industrial heartland and shire which was ruthlessly dismantled to ensure there was no competing ideology for Britain as a financial service sector, and the North as the intellectual and artistic core of the nation whose talent formed the basis of the world's industrial revolution which the City has pillaged ever since.

If Britain was a community, the city would be the Kray twins. As someone who spends a little time in France I would suggest that it is more capable of surviving economic crisis than the UK as it is nearer its self-sufficient agrarian roots. This summer I watched a Norman mayor take a bag of tarmac from the boot of his car to fill a pothole in the road one Sunday in his spare time. The chance of seeing his British equivalent doing something similar would be non-existent, he'd expect the job to be farmed out to tender and if funds weren't available would see the road closed before he'd pick up a shovel.

[OnlyMe]

If Britain was a community, the city would be the Kray twins. As someone who spends a little time in France I would suggest that it is more capable of surviving economic crisis than the UK as it is nearer its self-sufficient agrarian roots. This summer I watched a Norman mayor take a bag of tarmac from the boot of his car to fill a pothole in the road one Sunday in his spare time. The chance of seeing his British equivalent doing something similar would be non-existent, he'd expect the job to be farmed out to tender and if funds weren't available would see the road closed before he'd pick up a shovel.

A tiny example to base the whole the financial future of a country on, but I think you have a point! France's ability to feed itself is not a small thing either + plus their nuke plants for a decent baseline power supply.

[interestrateripoff]

If Britain was a community, the city would be the Kray twins. As someone who spends a little time in France I would suggest that it is more capable of surviving economic crisis than the UK as it is nearer its self-sufficient agrarian roots. This summer I watched a Norman mayor take a bag of tarmac from the boot of his car to fill a pothole in the road one Sunday in his spare time. The chance of seeing his British equivalent doing something similar would be non-existent, he'd expect the job to be farmed out to tender and if funds weren't available would see the road closed before he'd pick up a shovel.

Surely here the Mayor would just get the chauffeur to do it?

[Agentimmo]

Kathleen Brooks, research director at currency experts Forex.com

Quelle surprise !

Company that makes money from dealing in Forex would like to create more opportunities for itself by seeing one currency broken down into 9 or 10 separate ones. While she's at it, could she tell us what the exchange rate would be for the £ against the Franc if a euro meltdown happened?

[DeepLurker]

I have often wondered whether the whole EU experiment started because of Germany's guilt about their behaviour in the 1930s and 1940s.

My observation is that younger Germans feel less association with that past than older Germans. As time passes and the demographics of guilt shift, the changes in the population could eventually lead to the undoing of the experiment when enough younger Germans feel that the cost of European integration to them is too high relative to their decreasing feelings of guilt about the WWII era.

Not sure about the Germans, but for their number 1 buddy - the French - it's clearly a political process.

The country was wrecked by the 2 world wars*, and the EU is still seen as the tool that transformed the hereditary enemy into a close ally.

* yes, WW2 counts - although the fashionable view here in the UK is that France did sod all, they took heavy losses in 1940, then spent 4 years under German occupation, which permanently scared the nation.

[PopGun]

The tobacconists are blocking the Spanish border on Sundays to stop people going over to buy cheap fags.

The logic is inescapable, but hey who knows? Logic and government rarely come into contact

[cakehead]

The French, along with continentals generally, don't subscribe to the home-as-castle nonsense that has lead directly to house prices in the UK. if you have an invading army sweeping through every forty years or so the investment potential of bricks and mortar and the fetish surrounding it isn't quite the same. I never fail to be surprised at British surprise that France and Germany and western Europe as a whole want closer ties.

A session at the Imperial War Museum dispels most doubts on the matter.

[campervanman]

I'll say a bit more. The reason that this is interesting to me is because it lays the dilemma squarely on the line.

The Eurozone has two options. Either it becomes one country, fiscally, and Germany becomes the equivalent of London and the South-East in the UK, the major tax contributor, with the other countries contributing and depending to various degrees, behaving like other tax-dependent regions of the UK, France being perhaps like the Midlands; Greece, Ireland and Portugal being similar perhaps to Northern Ireland and Wales.

That would put the UK somwhere north of John o' Groats then as it saves the pound.

[hedgefunded]

If I had my way I'd nuke everything outside a fifty mile range of Somerset. It would be a tactical nuke that let the bunnies and other wildlife survive.

Then I'd nuke Glastonbury and Shepton Mallet. They're inside my theoretical safe zone but they should go too.

[Mrs Bear]

So will the bankers succeed where Napoleon and Hitler failed and create a united Europe?

It's hard to see how they can contain this now.

Ultimately because of political fudging during it's creation the Eurozone brought in huge turds. Rather than allowing 3% deficits it should have been balanced budgets with a clear plan to pay off existing debts. Instead they fudged lied and committed fraud to get the Eurozone off the ground with as many members as possible.

The single interest rates was a massive flaw.

This situation could get very quickly out of control, once confidence evaporates it will be blind panic.

They were utterly, ruthlessly, determined to have it - they had cast-iron blinkers on, and still have.

[oracle]

I have often wondered whether the whole EU experiment started because of Germany's guilt about their behaviour in the 1930s and 1940s.

My observation is that younger Germans feel less association with that past than older Germans. As time passes and the demographics of guilt shift, the changes in the population could eventually lead to the undoing of the experiment when enough younger Germans feel that the cost of European integration to them is too high relative to their decreasing feelings of guilt about the WWII era.

no,they are about to find out that the cost of empire comes at a price of their own debt and their own blood.At present they would like the empire without the price...hence getting the US and UK embroiled in what will become a dirty war,without doing the dirty work.

The remnants of ALL these peoples ravaged by the actions of EU will turn upon them .

[_w_]

Just to up the ante in the "you-can't-be-too-early-thread-title-claim stakes" I just had to put an early claim on this one, now it has been posited in the mainstream media:

http://www.dailymail...g-week-woe.html

Read my sig from several centuries ago and weep.

<Edit to add: Bummer, I've just realised your opening post is from November last year!>

[interestrateripoff]

Just *bumping* my old "dibs on France" thread, while things are all up in the Euro-air at the moment.

No one likes a show off

I'm just relieved they've finally contained the problem....

[copydude]

The reason that this is interesting to me is because it lays the dilemma squarely on the line.

Interesting. Old post and nothing has changed.

If you admit that practical solutions will never be palatable, then you have to admit that break-up is the only option. But then deal with it.

The lack of a Greek bailout plan seems to reflect all of this. Everyone admitted it was about buying time. I'm sure the initial rapture with the French Plan came from the bit about 30 years . . . that's putting things off nicely.

Even today, after Monday's totally inconsequential summit, Walter Schaubel said, '. . . but we have time. The next tranche isn't due until September'. Meanwhile politicians are being completely overtaken by events.

I'm not sure the war has so much to do with the EU these days. It seems to have expanded way beyond its original ideology and remit. With a lot of goading from NATO and the financial community, Brussels now seems in permanent mission creep. The EU is increasingly acting as if a nation state with satellites. As Juncker said recently, 'The sovereignty of Greece will be massively limited'. It's as much about geopolitics as debt. Greece could have made a perfectly orderly exit from the Eurozone a year ago, but was too much like losing territory.

I'm looking at this at the moment like the breakup of the Soviet Union. Gorbachev was overtaken by events, not the least of which was running out of money. The peripheral countries were uneconomic, unrewarding and fairly culturally incompatible. Should have been downsized years before the trainwreck.

[PopGun]

What a curious, depressing and misplaced analogy. How about London draining the talent that should rightly be spread throughout the country to ensure a vibrant and diverse nation, the home counties being the dormitory for the worker ants who service the nest in the belief they're at the centre of things, the Midlands being the industrial heartland and shire which was ruthlessly dismantled to ensure there was no competing ideology for Britain as a financial service sector, and the North as the intellectual and artistic core of the nation whose talent formed the basis of the world's industrial revolution which the City has pillaged ever since.

If Britain was a community, the city would be the Kray twins.

Edited July 13, 2011 by PopGun

[R K]

But it's all caused by currency unions. There's lots of evidence that the chronic malaise of the North of the UK, the South of Italy, and the Southern US states are caused by being (or having been) part of currency unions (pound, lira, dollar respectively). Currency unions stop local areas from having their own currency (or private currencies) which can devalue, allowing them to compete even with wage rigidity. Instead they can't compete, talented people leave and go to the highest wage paying area inside the currency union, and the imbalances worsen. It's a sort of centripetal force that sucks everybody in, and makes programmes like "Location, Location, Location" appear to be based on some sort of meaningful reality - rather than being a symptom of a cocked up central planning. Currency unions cause Londons.

Agree with this.

Mervyn ought to seriously consider how technology could be used to facilitate regional/local/micro local currencies operating within a wider currency union (£).

For some reason asset insurance companies can price down to postcode and individual and have done for decades, govt. can levy taxes at an individual and item level and yet central banks are utterly incapable of issuing currencies (apart from bank credit!) except at a 'national' level.

Beggars belief really.

(congrats on the shameless thread bump btw - impressive )

Edited July 13, 2011 by Red Karma

[right_freds_dead]

A tiny example to base the whole the financial future of a country on, but I think you have a point! France's ability to feed itself is not a small thing either + plus their nuke plants for a decent baseline power supply.

its the point that they are more in union as a antion. unlike our own divided society.

[right_freds_dead]

That's an inspiring post. Wouldn't it be wonderful if governmental agencies could be run rationally by intelligent people? The intelligent people are there - but they are squandered by overarching politics with their fear of real change and complexity. The result is paralysis and simplistic nonsense, pandering left and right.

(Another shameless *bump*. )

the people are there, but so are the controlled press who will stamp down on any genuine uncorrupted attempts with dirt.

you have to be in the club to play the game.