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Josh has a friend who works as an economist moderator.
This is why he can get our posts so easily deleted at anytime even during a Sunday.
"Josh has a friend who works as an economist moderator."
Please be more specific:
By "Josh" do you now mean: Josh, Karoshi, Teutonicus or Flowfall? Or Josh? Or... Josh?
bizarre that you resuscitate Teutonicus
Tell her, not me.
Talking about time bombs, currently Britain has the highest percentage of children living in workless households in the EU, 20%, and many more live in families heavily dependent on welfare handhouts. France's figure is 10%, and the figures of Southern European countries do no exceed 5%, even if their unemployment rates are much higher. Every research study shows that British children living in workless households have zero chances of ending the cycle of welfare dependency. Every research study shows as well that the birth rate of the British underclass is very high, much higher that the birth rate of the rest of the population, and much higher than that of the working-class of the other EU countries (except Ireland). No other EU country has a social time bomb as serious as the British culture of welfare dependency. It is a social problem, but it is also an economic problem, as the Economist knows well.
Are you lost? The article is on France, please stay on topic.
NB when you do manage to find the Britain section, if you are going to make the same vacuous conclusions, post a link to back them up.
Link Please!
http : // www . freerepublic . com/focus/f-chat/2064175/posts
forlana & all of goodwill
Rather too busy to help you out against the Morlocks. Maybe find some time when in Venice. Meantime, reading the article MC linked about the reality of Dirlick's Britain, which is haarsträubend but factually correct, I copied this snipped for you delectation:
"No sensible employer in a service industry would choose a young Briton if he could have a young Pole; the young Pole is not only likely to have a good work ethic and refined manners, he is likely to be able to add up and -- most humiliating of all -- to speak better English than the Briton, at least if by that we mean the standard variety of the language. He may not be more fluent but his English will be more correct and his accent easier to understand."
Yup, if you have tears, prepare to shed them now. Where is the Britain gone, that I used to love?? Is there hope for your country, junior, you who reside in La Belle France? You know why.
uh not as bad as the virtuous Germans who have "authorised" partnership with their pets:
Did you know that in France you can marry a dog?
no, but seems that you fall on a hoax, your link is kaput
Vivashorsemachete statement: "You have stepped over an invisible line with the creation of the euro and you are headed for disaster if you don't unwind it soon".
It would be nice if you can provide some facts on your "invisible line". Without that your assertion is hollow and you are simply wrong attributing some potential disaster to Euro. Why do you want misery for so many Euro lovers including this holder? Without Euro, Europe will remain patsy of the US dollar.
Here are some sample facts refuting your chinwag:
2.Pre-Euro selected years (1997-99) Spain unemployment was 18.3 Greece 11.0, post-Euro selected years (2006-08) Spain was 9.3 Greece 8.2 - meaning no causality effect of the Euro regardless of whatever the present figures are.
3.Debt/GDP 2012, EZ is 88% and the US is 103%, 2016 forecast EZ 86% vs. US 112%. – meaning no causality effect of a European single currency.
Source: "impartial" CIA book.
We have world financial crises that were not caused by the single currency but by the excessively greedy and responsibility avoiding financial players. Slogan "Wall Street before Main Street" must change.
Here is one for the Greek and Italian family album:
This may not be the documents the Brussels' sprouts are trying to hide in itself but very much the same story.
I see no mention of Draghi's name in the article. Draghi has said he was working private corporate finance at GS, not sovereign finance.
I also object to the article's choice of language. There is no "optical illusion" in Italian accounts, nor has there ever been. You might notice that recessions and depressions have a nasty habit of bringing cracks, defects and problems to the surface for any bank, corporation or country. And after 4 years of economic crisis there are few to none in Italy. (Monte dei Paschi di Siena is starting to look worse - they will make it, but it is now a "troubled bank".)
Whatever swaps the Italian Treasury effected in the 90's were legal and in plain view- it was impossible to hide such activity, amounting to billions of euros, for a G7 country.
Furthermore, if the swaps had ever reached an amount as high as €30 billion - a hefty amount of money - they would have equalled a pitiful 2% of our gdp.
Get real.
May I suggest the following may be symptomatic of your disagreement with Pumpernickel ?
"The Italian 8th Army, which held the Don flank between the Hungarians and the 3rd Romanian Army, had caused concern to the Germans ever since late August. Führer headquarters was forced to agree that XXIX Army Corps should be used to strengthen the Italian defense. Its staff issued the following advice to liaison officers; 'You should treat them politely, and a political and psychological understanding is necessary............The climate and environment make an Italian different from a German soldier. Italians tire more easily on the one hand, and on the other they are more exuberant. You should not be superior toward our Italian allies who came here fearlessly into hard and unfamiliar conditions to help us. Don't call them rude names, and don't be sharp with them'.
Understanding did little to change the Italians' manifest lack of enthusiasm for the war. A sergeant, when asked by a Soviet interpreter why his whole battalion surrendered without firing a shot, replied with sound civilian logic 'We did not fire back because we thought it would be a mistake'."
"Stalingrad", Antony Beevor.
When was the last time the Italians ever won a war?
Probably have to go back to the Roman legions.
Anyways the Turkish military could take Italy in 2 days and not German would lift a finger to help.
They are "pacifists" you see. Pacifists who sell weapons. I must get a new dictionary.
Pumpy is a very decent sort of chap.
Josh is the one I find very prejudiced.
Most of the early territory crossed of the Soviet Union by Italian soldiers was Belarus and Ukraine. Those were old lands of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth - a country once under the sphere of influence of Renaissance Italy (for example, their universities were all based upon Italian universities).
Italians were relatively shocked to find themselves as invaders in a cold, barren land - and treated by the local peasants with the utmost courtesy and hospitality - a vastly different story than how they were treated by their Nazi "allies" - notwithstanding the orders that had come down from the Fuhrer's headquarters (as per Beevor's book).
However, let's be clear about this, Italian ineptness (check, Mussolini's military ineptness) did in fact cost the Germans dearly:
1) the botched invasion of Greece forced the Germans to invade the Balkans and Greece, delaying the invasion of Russia by critical weeks;
2) The defeat of El Alamein permitted the Anglo-Americans to quickly occupy all of North Africa (both Italian and Vichy French) thus creating a "third front" in southern Europe by autumn of 1943;
3) The Italian collapse at Stalingrad - the decisive battle of the Eastern Front - played no small part in Germany's inability to win the war against Russia.
Of course, nobody but the extreme Right has ever felt embarrassed by the fact that our soldiers - who had fought well in WWI - were unable to fight well in a war they did not want with an ally they did not want and without anything resembling adequate weapons (on the eve of WWII, the country was already bankrupt from 20 years of dictatorship).
I still maintain the Euro-crisis is about the fact that the Germans have never forgiven us for WWII. They refuse to help Greece, because "behind Greece there is Italy - the real problem".
Wars won by Italy:
1) The country's own war of independence against Austria-Hungary and Bourbon monarchy - 1860-1861.
2) The Austro-Prussian War of 1866 - although regular Italian army units were largely defeated, Garibaldi's irregulars conquered Trent, and Prussia won the war for us - so in the end, we won: with that war, Italy re-conquered the Veneto Region (Venice, Belluno, Verona, Vicenza, Treviso, Padua and Rovigo, but also Mantua, Pordenone and Udine).
3) Colonies were conquered in Somalia and Eritrea in the late 1800's.
4) The peninsula won the Italo-Turkish War of 1911-12, conquering Libya and the Greek Dodecanese Islands (Rhodes).
5) WWI - Italy was a full signatory to the Treaties of Versailles, St. Germain and Lausanne, the latter two being drawn up also in an Italian-language official version - thus elevating Italian to a diplomatic language (at the same time as English was elevated - Versailles was the first international peace treaty to have an official version published in English).
6) Italy won the Abyssinian War of 1935-36.
7) Italy essentially lost WWII, but the arrest of the dictator and the downfall of Fascism during the war led to a new government formed by elderly, former democratic leaders who achieved "co-belligerency status" with the Allies. This meant that Italy did not lose the war quite as badly as Germany did - and joined both NATO and the UN long before Germany.
8) Italy participated fully in the Kosovo War of 1999 - we won that one.
9) I would call last year's escapade in Libya a war. And, we won that one, thank you very much.
10) Also, the Cold War was a long battle - we were on the winning side of that one too, as you may recall.
Finally, the foremost priority for Italian security - defensive and not imperialist or offensive - is to make sure that the peninsula dominates the Mediterranean Sea economically and has either no enemies or no important enemies with "Mare Nostrum".
During the Cold War Italy slowly but surely rejoined the international community of nations - there are no more hard feelings from Greece, Yugoslavia, Albania, Egypt or Libya (formerly occupied by Italy). We have military alliances with most states around the Mediterranean including Israel and Libya.
With the end of the Cold War, and now, the fall of Gheddafi, we are left in a Sea without enemies.
The one exception is Bashar Assad, with whom we had very good relations until the Arab Spring (Italy is Syria's first trade partner in Europe).
So Italian Diplomacy is now eager to establish good relations with a new Syria, the new Egypt and the new Palestinian state - to make sure we will have no enemies.
Not a bad strategic position, especially given our defeat 65 years ago, eh?
In fact, Sherry, the only war Italy ever LOST was the one declared by its dictator against the will of the King and public opinion: against France and the UK (and then, even worse, against the United States, when hardly a single Italian family was without relatives in the US).
before El Alamein, there was Bir Hakeim
the free french troops were on the operations too
"Pumpy is a very decent sort of chap.
Josh is the one I find very prejudiced."
Speaking of decency (or the lack thereof):
This coming from the one who shows absolutely no inhibitions whatsoever to voice the most grotesquely prejudiced opinions, allowing himself to regularly sink to the level of The Economist's rich assortment of cyber trash - get real, Milovan/Joe.
I have no prejudices against your country or any other, I simply have the habit of giving as good as I get.
You can be glad there are limits I would never cross, even if provoked - unlike you.
"I still maintain the Euro-crisis is about the fact that the Germans have never forgiven us for WWII. They refuse to help Greece, because 'behind Greece there is Italy - the real problem'."
... speaking of prejudices.
Seriously, Joe, grow up or shut up. As long as you relish in writing prejudiced nonsense like the above, you are the least to complain about what you perceive as "prejudices" on my or anybody else's part.
I already told you that Italy is nearly completely off the Germans' radar when it comes to their memory of WWII, so this bit is nothing more than a new version of your trademark navel gazing.
Italy is not the center of the universe, and not even of Europe. It is not now, and it was not then. Get over it.
Really? Italy is "nearly completely off the Germans' radar" regarding WWII? Really? So your answer to my accusation is to say, in effect, "Germany never thinks about its primary allies in WWII: Italy and Japan". Just how believable is that, Josh?
Apparently we were off their radar when they betrayed our alliance, the Anti-Comintern Pact, in 1939, signing the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact and informing nobody else of their moves.
Italy is so far off the German radar that they never stop accusing us of being unreliable allies - even when Germany was very clearly the unreliable ally in Libya last year.
"Pacifists who sell weapons." I like that Emma. Speaks volumes to their motivation.
It's the natural progression of things. Italia has been there and done that already, Greece too. Fighters become lovers and live to fight another day. Over something important though, like a traffic jam. Then You'll see what fighters Italians and Greeks are Emma. We're hot blooded by our nature you know. The knives come out of the eyes, but we seldom if ever comes to blows. It's a form of therapy. Pay someone to listen to my problems? HA!!! I'll take it on the guy in the car in front of me...laughs
You might wanna add the Mob Wars in Las Vegas.
The Sicilians are Greeks you know. Revenge is a dish that's best served cold...laughs
@ Milovan/Joe:
It is as I said: Italy doesn't play any significant role AT ALL in the German memory of WWII. When they think of WWII, Italy is really the least of the Germans' concerns.
What you apparently fail to grasp is this: A legacy like nazism forces a society to make hard choices. You'll either be taken hostage by a dark past forever – or you'll have to accept responsibility, don't look back and move on. And that's what the Germans did as of the 1960s.
No small feat, if you ask me. As a society, it made them more resilient to adversity, and nothing proves that better than the past 20 yrs: depsite the horrendous financial and social costs of reunification, GERMANY is in much better shape than countries who didn't have to face similar challenges.
I frankly don't think all European societies can claim to possess similar strengths. POLAND e. g. does, because it also had to face incredible challenges in its recent past, and survived them.
You decide for yourself whether ITALY falls into that category.
@ Milovan/Joe:
As for Libya: Libya wasn't an art. 5 NATO treaty (collective defense) operation. Participation was voluntary. Precisely 50 % of all NATO member states chose not to participate, among them Germany and Poland, who have each no strategic interest whatsoever in Libya.
What was the remarkable, though, is that he country with the biggest interest at stake, ITALY, dithered in characteristic fashion for a full month, and let others take the lead - France, the US, and the UK (in that order).
It is this characteristic opportunism that has earned Italy a "solid" reputation as a rather unreliable ally - not just in Europe, but also in the US, as you will probably know.
Right. My bad, how could I forget Alexander "Al" Caponakis?
Germany never takes position at the UN, it seems that that is her rule, idem for the vote in Palestine vs Israel dilemn, that Israel understood as a hostile position for a claimed "official" allie though, which drives us to wonder why Germany wanted that seat at the UN? or is it the remnent Merkiavelli behaviour ruling there too?
"Hesitation as a means of coercion – that is Merkiavelli's method. This coercion is not the aggressive incursion of German money but the opposite. It is the threat of withdrawal, delay and the refusal of credit. If Germany withholds its consent, the ruin of the debtor nations is inevitable. Only one fate is worse than being overwhelmed by German money and that is not being overwhelmed by German money."
Merkel does not rule out a real debt haircut for Greece after 2014. The debt to GDP ratio? What's that? You mean the IMF is insisting the debt be made manageable? Consider it a late Christmas gift Greece, from your cheap @ss German relations...laughs
You see, Greeks suffered up front. You know what Managers do to overly organized workers here in America? We mix their $hit up to watch them pull their hair out just for sport:
Worker: But I can't get my work done this way!
Manager: I know...laughs. Can I watch when you kill yourself.
Time for the German electorate to get indignant I say, but it will be a slow burn, like lamb and potatoes in the oven.
Now remember where you heard it first. There's no such thing as a monetary union without it also being some sort of transfer union.
I'll watch from the safety of the USA. Hell, when our banks failed, we just printed money and bailed out Germany as well.
The Germans said, "you must help us. There are no jobs", and guess what? America actually felt responsible for Germans' well being, and helped out big time, but Germans are still complaining about the sub prime mortgage crisis of course. The global economic system America created isn't perfect enough for them you see.
Blame rolled down hill, until the ball reached Germany, and she tried to take it and go home, washed it, dried it, and put high up on a shelf where Greece couldn't get to it. "Dirty lying substandard Greeks"..laughs
But America finally got mad and read Germany the riot act:
Obama: Hey you Germany, stop slapping Greece around. What are you idiots trying to do? Bring the whole of the global economy to its knees? Didn't we just bail you out?
Samaras: Yeah, you heard the man. What are you trying to do. I'm fine, but the Greeks are starving...
Merkel: Shut up Samaras! Yes Sir Obama. Right away Obama. (Then out of ear shot). Stupid Greeks got us in trouble again, I'll fix their wagon. Make them wait until we're good and ready. After all, we have plenty to eat here...laughs
Merkin keeps on blowing the cold and the hot, acually she is lying while having an eye on the Germans opinions
Replying to comments of yours is always a challenge, as they disappear faster than even mine.
Urekuhe yourself, whatever that means.
You are a sad case of blinkered nationalism. If we had the misfortune of having you around in the Berlin of the 30s you would, no doubt, have been one of the Führergroupies. Later in the 40s you would have had a sex change in order to join the "Charlemagne" French SS Division fighting around the Führerbunker till the very end, more fanatical than ze Germanz who already were on their way to South America. That's the kind of Frenchie you are. Just sore that nowadays we have nothing much to offer you in the horror department. Oulala!
pathetic, don't transpose your mind on me
you're like those german troopers in France, gentle at the begining, and threatening us and shoutting at us when we didn't behave according to your rules
I would have been in Resistance
No doubt in my mind that you would have been in the Resistance like tens of thousands of other brave French men and women claimed.....After the liberation.
written by your neo-connerie bigots of the Bush era, I know, only the Americans were the warriors that defeated the evil Nazis. Problem, they wouldn't have managed to land in Normandy, if the ground wasn't prepared by the french Resistance, ie Birtnick's referrence to a movie on french TV channel when la Merkin was telling to Hollande "Achtung"
"How to end the agony Nov 17th, 20:44"
"Here is further indication of the public mood elsewhere in Europe over loss of economic sovereignty in a country that cannot be bullied like Greece or Portugal.
I had word from France about media reaction to Merkel's "Achtung" behaviour and the ECB, reflecting a public unease about the Fiscal Pact which was surreptitiously rammed through parliament eurobot style.
A French chum in Lorraine(who hated working for Siemens along with other French employees) told me about a very timely film that was aired in France (France 3 TV) - Les Femmes de l'Ombre, just before as PM Ayrault went to Berlin to 'dissipate all ambiguity' about France, and to make clear that France runs her own affairs (why, did someone say she didn't?? ACHTUNG !! – Frau Merkel), that the German press has got it wrong about France.
The film is about Germany 'running' France all those years ago.
It's the true story of Louise Desfontaines (real life name Lisé Marie Jeanette de Baissac) who worked with the SOE: the Special Operations Executive (SOE) was a British World War II organisation formed to conduct espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance in occupied Europe against the Axis powers, and to aid local resistance movements, in which the French were of course major participants.
["Female Agents" (French: Les Femmes de l'ombre) is a 2008 French historical drama film directed by Jean-Paul Salomé and starring Sophie Marceau, Julie Depardieu, Marie Gillain, Déborah François, and Moritz Bleibtreu. The film is about female resistance fighters in the Second World War. Jean-Paul Salomé, the director, drew inspiration from an obituary in The Times newspape] of Lise de Baissac (Lise Villameur), one of the few recognised heroines of the SOE, named "Louise Desfontaines" in the film and played by Sophie Marceau. ]
Lisé Marie Jeanette de Baissac was parachuted into France with four other French women in early 1944. One was captured and couldn't swallow her cyanide in time, was tortured by the Gestapo and gave the others away.
The film goes into horrifying detail of the actual tortures carried out on the woman by the Gestapo that took place all over occupied Europe.
(A certain poster may be surprised to learn that EU-realists, at least, are not keen on such totalitarian depravity.)
Have there been many such themes being broadcast in France of late?
Judging by the press, I know that after the Time Bomb headline has been forgotten, popular resentment for the alien-imposed Fiscal Pact is bound to regain attention."
"General Eisenhower also estimated the value of the Résistance to have been equal to ten to fifteen divisions at the time of the landings. (One infantry division represented about ten thousand soldiers.)[153][154] Eisenhower's statements are all the more credible as he attributed them to his GHQ's formal analyses, and published them only after the War when propaganda intent no longer loomed. Historians still debate how effective the French Résistance was militarily,[155] but for instance the neutralization of the Maquis du Vercors alone involved the commitment of over 10,000 German troops within the theater, with several more thousands held in reserve, in a period when the Allied invasion was breaking out of Normandy and French Operation Jedburgh commandos were being dropped nearby to the south to prepare for the Allied landing in Provence." Wikipedia
Until the last 3 days before Dday Roosevelt didn't want to acknowledge de Gaulle as the leader of the freen France government, but General Giraud, more accomodative.
BTW the New Zeelanders aren't "bégueule" like the biaseds of your sort,
"An estimated 500,000 French men and women worked for the Resistance during Germany's occupation of France. Resistance workers carried out thousands of acts of sabotage against the German occupiers. The risks were great. More than 90,000 resisters were killed, tortured or deported by the Germans.
They also gathered intelligence and helped Allied airmen and prisoners of war escape the country, risking their lives to save the young strangers. New Zealanders were among those helped to safety by the Resistance."
The French free troops freed southern France and made their dDay in ausgust 1944, not mediatised by your sort of people of course, only dDay in Normandy saved Europe...
75% of the work was already done by the Soviet troops on the eastern front
"I would have been in Resistance"
For sure you would, Marine!
With your well-known attitude towards freedom and self determination, your endless goodness and your moral fibre - fate would have put you right in the Resistance.
Cry me a River Gwitty!
you know the refrain, it's made in America
"Marine" is used for all the sauces, especially from the Germans, who don't like other perspectives of facts but theirs. Isn't it funny, that's also the favorite EU federalists insult !
I just wrote I'll miss theo, and he comes right back up dumping another load.
Theo, how am I supposed to miss you if you just pop right back up, right after you said you weren't going to be posting? How?!
Can't trust nobody these days.
Yup, that one sure does "pile it up" but it'll bunkertime for even the most dense, uninformed German bot (or German bot wannabe Theodolyte).
Here's an article for any German language reader with a message that should at last penetrate even the thickest eurobot skull in Berlin. http://www.spiegel.de/politik/...
Too bad Theodolyte can't read German - it would break his little heart:) and it comes from Der Spiegel, the German Bot Bible, which has the privilege of enlightening its self-hating anaesthetised eurobot readership on what the rest of us have known for a couple of decades or more.
All of a sudden it will be decreed max to be "koowul" (that's how they pronounce "cool" - most irritating) in Germany - to be "Eurosceptic".
An *eureka* moment for Germany at last: even earnest teutonic "eurofederalists" are slowly waking up to the fact that the only people who are for the "EU" .... are its employees and subsidy-feeders!
Strike a light!
When the €uro-generated debts start to really bite collective German bum, its author, that mammoth semi-submerged stinking stool blocking the European ceramic thoroughfare (it's a real pea-souper there - no mistake) will at last gain free passage round the U-bend of this perverted chapter of modern history.
Did you know that water is even more expensive in rainy Germany than in mismanaged rainy England?
I read a report from Hamburg recently that even the ritziest neighbourhood stink because citizens were dutifully following Green-fascist doctrine to conserve water, resulting in bunged up waste pipes from insufficient lavatory flushing. There is a fancy olde exclusive worlde hotel up there that I had the misfortune of visiting not so long ago, displaying the order "You vill not flush at night!" in every cludgie (they probably had CCTVs to check compliance and a Lavatory Gestapo on alert) - so that a real eye-smarting "pea-souper" had built up as an appetizer before breakfast - those always obey orders.
(I remember thinking bleakly, Christ, if they are that stingy with a hotel's water, what are they like at home? The kamekaze Green eurofascists probably collect and pot it as fertiliser for the garden).
Another stench endorsed by the "EU".
Btw, that means that hotel guests in Germany look even more zombielike than ever with those dark rings of constipation under their eyes from their eagerness to comply with 'lavatory-verbot'.
Company at breakfast was so appetising - like the film extras from The Night of The Living Dead.
Really creepy.
Some of us are obsessed with the brown stuff. Nearly every posting of such some is revolving around the ceramic, pea souping, speaking about "dropping loads", recommending books about Dirtlicking, describing conditions of toilets all the way down to the stench most unappetizingly. No wonder nobody really feels like conversing with them except the Morlocks, when taking pity.
One must assume that these such some conceived a bad Freudian condition due to mismanaged potty training. Hilarious!
Reduced to talking to oneself? Trying to curry up some humour flat footedly?? One should contemplate the easy way out of one's misery like jumping from a high building or over indulging in Dirtlicking, hmmm?
That was a real pot-kettle observation.
Only in Germany do they produce lavatories that force you to view your stool in full cinemascope. I wonder what Freud would have made of that?
Something deeply troubling lurking in the German psyche, I suspect.
They do everything in their power to make a visit unappetizing - unless they really think everyone is sick enough to enjoy such an ambience. It was a "pea souper" in there before I has even crossed the hotel foyer! You'd need a gas mask.
Oh sure, they'll tell you that it is so that you can "assess" your health by using such perversion of that civilising invention of Thomas Crapper, as if each and every citizen were a qualified gastroentirologist. But such things belong to the laboratory for christsake, not the living space - even a dog or a cat understands that.
Are all hotels like that in Germany these days? More like Green-eurofascist political correctness gone ape.
They probably even think it is "koowul" as an an appropriate politically-correct stinker of a metaphor - laid on as a special "welcome" to euroland.
Must be the stone-age German idea of humour I suppose.
It was like tear gas. Was I supposed to laugh?
Gave yourself only 4 recommends so far for this truly unappetizing posting in your inimitable style. Must I put video clips of all my three beautiful Villeroy & Boch toilets on my YouTube site under "Pumpernickel's toilets" to convince you that the standard here is the "drop into water and disappear" style. The other kind you might find in a hypochonder's or doctor's household or in hotels catering for sikkos like yourself (sorry sikko), whose first visit when examining a hotel room is the ceramic. You are a weird one alright.
It seems that Pumperbot has got them in a twist because of the link http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/eu-haushaltsgipfel-geplatzt-camero... that shows that his 'eurofederalism' is even losing support among der Spiegel readership, yet chooses to focus his reply purely on a couple of random observations on the Green eurofascists. (Comments that no doubt gave other readers a good laugh) - hence the recs presumably - can't have that, eh, Pumper?
He must be stung that the euro-worm is turning at home and would like to have the thread deleted, using his usual tactic against the truths he does not like us to hear.
Good job that the hapless academic Theodolyte can't read German, eh:)
Ha, ha, ha !
do you remember last year E-coli infection last year in Germany? Germans accused the spanish cucumbers being at the origin, when it was from their home grown sprouts
Theo has been begging off for two days now and he is still here. He just can't let the past in the past. Is he French?
sorry to deceive you, he is American of German origin
My comment mysteriously disappeared... So did your reply.
Concerning growing contempt for the EU:
Yes, I noticed Pumpernickel blindly refusing to recognize the growing contempt for the EU. It no doubt exists in Germany. Having now read the Spiegel article (IMO Spiegel (online) does an acceptable job when it comes to collecting relevant news of a wide range of topics - but that's it. Having found an interesting headline you better switch to a serious newspaper reporting on that) I noticed what I already experienced elsewhere (e.g. on WeltOnline to a considerably larger extent): Commenters showed lots of support and sympathy for Cameron (supposedly) busting the EU summit. There are many jealously looking at Britian while hoping that it will be them who take the first step towards a looser Union.
However, I am not sure whether this accurately represents the public opinion. Sure, I personally know fellow Germans who share the sceptic attitude, but also quite a lot who would join Pumpernickel.. I suspect that sometimes it goes hand in hand: Knowing that our own politicians (and the electorate) don't have the strength for a healthy attitude, people just assume: What we can't have shall not be "granted" the British either. But this may be a little far-fetched...
Josh, hi
As a matter of fact, I have been supporting Cameron from the beginning and still do in his attempt to reduce the EU budget, if you cared to nose into my history. I also am not in love with Brussels. If it was up to me I would reduce this institution to one third of its present size, nail it to one location (don't care if Brussels or Straßburg) and send most of the MEPs packing, starting with Farage, not because I disagree with him but because of his bad manners and low calibre. So, please, portray me here correctly, Josh.
Having said this I am, of course, still very much a Euro supporter. It is the best thing that has happened to not only the GIPS lately and Germany, France and Italy are its biggest beneficiaries. In that order.
Spiegel is useful as a collator of info but, sadly, not objective. Neither is Die Welt. I rate Die Zeit and Frankfurter Allgemeine as the Sprachrohr of informed German opinion.
Discussion with the Morlocks here is pointless and Urekuhe is a suppressed Nazi who during the occupation would have lustily collaborated. One of those French like Céline who Ernst Jünger described as one of the most despicable individuals he had the misfortune of meeting when in Paris attached to the staff of von Stülpnagel.
Petty nationalists in all their shapes, as rampant in this blog, be it Urekuhe or the one in love with stools and toilets, the Aryan Swan catcher and, first and foremost, our most revered Italian Ghibeline who, like you, I cannot really despise like the others. He simply is too Italian for that!
As to the Mrcans only viva passes muster and that for the wrong reasons LOL. The Brain and Rote Unterhosen should really not put their noses into European affairs seeing that we so seldom comment about the sad economic situation of the US of A, which is not our business. But then these too have a problem with Germans based on personal family history which, as far as I am concerned, does not give them the right to shout "Auschwitz" at every opportunity to keep the Germans here malleable. Won't work with me. They are an irritant and should seek professional help. The worst thing that could happen to them would be if I, as the only live German on the blog, would emigrate for good to the Guardian, where one has a chance to meet intelligent Brits and other Europeans where moderators meet out punishment on the merits of contributions. Uh well, perhaps I should provided I do not let the door hit me back :-)
Hi Pumpernickel,
"I have been supporting Cameron" ... "I am, of course, still very much a Euro supporter."
To me your attitude looks more like a contradictio in adiecto.
I am sorry if I didn't portray you correctly but you can't be a Brussels-rejecting Euro-supporter.
In my opinion the Euro is only the most visible failure of Brussels. Of course, if you understand "Brussels" purely as a synonym of bureaucracy and nepotism perhaps you will be able to construct something like a "Brussels-rejecting Euro-supporter".
But the Anti-Brussels attitude I referred to in my post above goes way further. In a democracy you cannot leave the majority of legislative acts to a non-elected commission and parliament without political debate. Let alone the fact that there is no Demos. You cannot share a currency without sharing sovereignty, sharing debt and political union (for each there is no democratic majority).
I can't answer to all of your statements, so just briefly:
"Discussion with the Morlocks here is pointless" ..." Petty nationalists in all their shapes,"
You are right. Discussion is pointless.
But this is mutual, Pumpernickel. More than once Birtnick et al. have accurately described the failure of the EU (and our very own country), it's lack of democracy and your ongoing reluctance to acknowledge this. Nonetheless I agree with you that there are some pretty disturbing characters to be found here. Lots of hair-raising nonsense, hate-driven quite obviously by pure nationalism and racism. Of course sometimes they "hit it on the nail", on other occasions they just scream: "I want my pills back!".
Whether in some cases (I like the nickname "The Brain" btw), this is based on personal experience with Germans or even nazi Germans, I do not know, although I doubt it. I agree with you. I (for instance) was born more than 100 years after Hitler, I have been a guest at the homes of very friendly Israelis - there is plainly no reason to cry "Auschwitz" at every opportunity.
Josh (that Josh-thing I like as well btw...)
Fair comments, but PP's inability to understand the implications of "it's lack of democracy and your ongoing reluctance to acknowledge this" is a disturbing constant in his pontifications here.
After all, Germany used to be a model democracy before your "political class " was infiltrated by eurobots, to a greater extent than even the UK (that idiot Cameron actually wanted to "save" the "EU" but fortunately has made himself - by accident more than design - very unpopular with the eurobots (Clarke, Blair, Heseltine etc).
PP's constant proclamations of his ardour for a "united Europe" nation is fear-driven, which makes him perfect eurobot fodder. (Fear of isolation, coupled with the standard eurobot fantasy that we'll all vote in the Nazis if this wicked democracy stuff is not stamped out).
These people, because of their insecurity, tend to be authoritarian and regard democracy as a nuisance.
The lesson learned from the last elections in France: Sarkozy had his plus/minus points, but his major error was in advocating that the French become more German in ever-closer-union, which is a colossal blunder for a political animal. The French and Germans sharing sovereignty is as you have implied, an oil/water mission.
You may have noted that PP told you that Brussels "should be reduced by two thirds".
This is probably because Brussels is now being completely by-passed by Merkel who rules the EZ directly, no doubt with PP's approval. Brussels has thus become the nuisance for certain German circles that it wasn't before.
PP is that transparent, and I would have thought an embarrassment for the more objective and discerning German readers here.
Of course, this is a good thing in one important sense, since it discredits the stated aims of Brussels, showing it up for the impotent, corrupt and incompetent organisation that it is.
It does, however, leave Germany with a massive PR problem in Europe.
My contempt for Brussels has been fairly consistent throughout my blogging history. Until they come clean and sign the accounts and make everything transparent, I shall continue to believe that there is a lot of self-serving corruption going on.
Of course, we need Brussels but at one third of the present bureaucracy would do nicely. All major decisions to be taken by the electors, as always, which works fine. Only very gradually over the next 50 years or so should Brussels become the central power in small democratic steps. It has to grow organically.
If France, Germany and Italy deal with each other in an honest above board way, the EZ and the EU are safe.
What has made me such a cynic is the handling of both the Greek and Cyprus situation. Two countries which should not be part of the EZ and may well prove to be its demise due to moral hazard.
I don't see how this can be remedied right now but I remain an optimist.
I have just heard from Lorraine that German-bashing in the media continues the gather pace.
You can't even switch on popular TV channels without some WW2 memorabilia being thrust at you.
The Bots must be squealing "conspiracy!"
Last night it was France 3, public service TV is showing the 2004 film 'La Chute' ('der Untergang')
… "… April 1945, the HauptBot raving in his bunker."
The all-unifying €, 'the perpetuum mobile', must have really gone down a treat in France:)
What will it do for good neighbourly relations next !?
>I have been a guest at the homes of very friendly Israelis <
you are making some very good points, nonetheless at this one you were knocking at the wrong door :) Germany never waged a war against state of Israel, on the opposite! :))
"If France, Germany and Italy deal with each other in an honest above board way"
We are observing right now what happens when France, Germany and Italy deal with each other "in an honest above board way" - Constant falling apart.
"It has to grow organically."
Again, this is a contradictory to what you say in the sentence after that. The Euro - and hence the EZ itself - is a shining example of not organically grown structures. In a truly democratic process (for instance the Bundestag NOT voting yes on Maastricht while population opposed to it) there would be no EZ. Supporting the Euro and promoting organically grown structures is just not coherent.
Of course you are right about the rest... too much bureaucracy, lack of transparency, Greece should never have joined EZ... But does this really matter?
"Germany never waged a war against state of Israel, on the opposite! :))"
But it murdered one third of its potential population.*
Does it make such a difference?
*At first I wanted to respond to your smiley with one of my own there, but then realized.. well, doesn't really fit there :)
" ... "It has to grow organically."
Again, this is a contradictory to what you say in the sentence after that. The Euro - and hence the EZ itself - is a shining example of not organically grown structures."
PP incoherence is total. Here are a few examples.
1. He believes the EU should not resemble the US but should be a 'Europe of nation states', yet not once did he contest Theomorph's remark that the nation state was 'an anachronism' and should be done away with.
2. He believes in 'subsidiarity', but has never lamented the fact that the EU increasingly encroaches on the affairs of national governments. His idle remark that Brussels should be 'reduced by a third' or 'to a rubber stamp' is just thoughtless waffle, the usual lack of substance.
3. PP believes that ther EU should resemble a larger 'Swiss federation', yet conveniently forgets that in Switzerland not only does income tax vary from canton to canton, but also between different 'communes'. How does this square with fiscal union and support for the agreed Budgetary Pact, much more fiscally binding than anything in the US, a country too unified for PP's "Europe of Nations"? Incoherence.
4. PP believes there should be no transfer union, yet is adamant that there can be a currency union between such diverse countries as Germany, Portugal, Spain, France, Slovenia and Ireland (can't mention Cyprus as he doesn't want the Greeks).
His head must be spinning in the bunker with contradiction.
Okay, point taken, too much smileys.
It does make a difference, since you talk about 'Israelis'. There'd probably be no Israel as we now know it were there no WWII. Israel does have a good attitued to Germany, as the latter supported their country. But to say that all Jews share good attitude would be an exaggeration.
Also, worth remembring, that Germany caused death of some 15 % of actual population of Poland. And some 50 % of 'potential' population of what is now Belarus. Thus my remark about 'wrong door' as in spite of that past Poles have genrerally good, unrelated to the past, opinion about their neighbours as they aretoday.
"...Fear of isolation, coupled with the standard eurobot fantasy that we'll all vote in the Nazis if this wicked democracy stuff is not stamped out) ... tend to be authoritarian and regard democracy as a nuisance."
Agree. I don't know whether these motives apply to individuals (such as Pumpernickel) but you are describing a (particularly) German illness pretty well. People tend to believe in: "We can't trust ourselves so better let's leave the decisions to others".
"The lesson learned from the last elections in France: ..."
This might be a step towards the right direction...
"I don't know whether these motives apply to individuals (such as Pumpernickel) but you are describing a (particularly) German illness pretty well."
The "insecurity" element plus an ill-disguised insecurity-driven wish to control the neighbourhood would certainly apply to poster such as Pumpernickel, although I suspect he is too brainwashed to realise it. Otherwise it only applies to the political class and sections of the media (Spiegel used to be terribly eurobot - the son of owner Augstein used to write a deathly doctrinaire column).
But "normal" Germans in my experience are a different story. They think the whole "Laden" stinks to kingdom come and curse the above "political class" for being in thrall to the "EU". When the already existant transfer union shows in full force, will the average German have the courage not to be intimidated by their eurobot politicians with Nazi slurs?
What Germany needs is a Volksaufstand by taxpayers for democracy, not a bunch of clueless simpering eurobots telling them what is 'right' as if some kind of half-baked religious instruction.
The "EU" spreads its sickness meanwhile: for all states benefitting from subsidies like your neighbour Poland, the "EU" is of course a terrific institution with the reduction of democracy that it entails an unimportant detail for as long as those subsidies keep coming.
Bravo Birtnick! Congratulations for learning one difference between Nazi Germany and EU. Nazi Germany was stealing from and killing Poles, the EU helps Poles to catch up with more lucky 20-century-wise parts of the continent.
P.S. You have informed us already about the major deficit of democracy in UK, where everyone wants out of EU, yet UK is still there. In Poland we don't have such deficit, most want to be in so we are in, that's how it generally works here on 'the continent'.
"Nazi Germany was stealing from and killing Poles, the EU helps Poles to catch up with more lucky 20-century-wise parts of the continent."
So you see the "EU" as a weapon of revenge on Germany. So much for this fraterrnal solidarnosc among you wonderful EUropeans,eh? That tactic might have worked on the likes of catholic dinosaur Pumpernickel, but not many others are going to buy it. Besides, France etc. have already milked that one dry.
As for the UK, need I repeat that the Common Market was misrepresented, and it has taken until the name-change to "EU" for people to take note, such was their lack of interest?
If you read the Britsh press you will notice support draining away from all parties on a pro-"EU" ticket; indeed the most pro-"EU" party of all, the LibDems, have virtually annihilated themselves. That is democracy.
The "EU" was simply not set up for democracy which is why it was so easy for it to BUY Polish support while stamping out more democracy with each treaty. You call that democracy?
We call it vote-buying and gerrymandering.
No, the UK and Poland clearly do not belong in the same "club".
Man-up! Stop complaining about lack of democracy and/or misinterpretation of international politics in UK. Set your house in order first, then come back to complain about others. And don't worry about Poland and Germany too much. We will manage without your 'enlightened' mediation.
And have a nice weekend.
"And don't worry about Poland and Germany too much. We will manage without your 'enlightened' mediation."
Ha, ha, ha, ha! In that case you'd better ask if those concerned want to live under a dicatorship.
None of my business,eh?
The problem for you, Forlana, your eurofascist EU/EZ is very much the UK's business since, UNLIKE POLAND, the UK contributes to the budget. You will be hearing plenty about that until we are out of your miserable "club", don't you worry.
You have a lot to learn.
I would take a bet that Poland will never join the € as the date has already been put back. Surveys in the first half of 2012 indicated that 60% of Poles were opposed to adopting the common currency. Public support for the euro continued to fall, reaching record lows in the CBOS polls from July 2012, where only 25% of those polled supported a switch to the euro.
But you may find yourselves forced to join it. Take your prime motivator for your membership of this "genious structure" - your prized *subsidiarinosc*: now what will happen to that if you do not do as you are told? (e.g. by not joining the currency disunion or rejecting a raft of other unpopular measure imposed on you by people you did not elect?) What will you do? Try to blame Germany?
Then you will learn that your "genious structure" has got you where it wants you - ask the Spanish.
Then Brussels will tell you to "wummun up!"
Have an EUphorik weekend, now:)
A - ha - ha - ha - ha - ha - ha !!!
(...and go easy on the eurobot delete button:)
yet,I doubt that this programmation of these two films about the Nazis regime had the goal to fit with the the actualities. Anyways they might recall certain people how evil the Nazis were.
I preferred "The reader" which explains more the German population will to make its "resilience", while saving the appearences.
' Besides, France etc. have already milked that one dry.'
That's the usual hoaxed tendency, it's the French that benefits the most !
Germany gets 2/3 of what the French gets as PAC (UK, Poland, about 1/2)
http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/publi/ms_factsheets/2012/eu_en.pdf (page 6)
BTW, France isn't in the top ten for EU subsidies:
EU countries net contibutions:
Germany: 21 189.9
France: 19 075.6
the UK rebate that is mainly paid by France (€1,5BN until the last years), followed by Italy, on which Germany got a 75% rebate
Incredible, but not advertised by the countries that want to lecture France, Germany's got also a 2 billion euros Rebate on its VAT contribution to EU
So at the End France is the 1rst net EU contribuator
to a certain point, the Nazis supported Zionnism
The liquidation of the European Jews by the Nazis appeared to be the result of the Wannsee conference in 1941, since the Nazis troops marching towards East couldn't manage the numerous Jews, the concentration camps (still ment as forced Arbeit camps) were full.
Thank you for the good wishes!
You are right about everything you said.
But my point was a different one, I think. (Nor did I say that all Jews had a good attitude towards Germany).
What I tried to point out in my response to Pumpernickel was something like: "Even many Israeli people don't cry Auschwitz at every opportunity although they belong to those who are most "entitled" (notice the " ") to do that. Bearing this in mind, the Auschwitz-crying German-bashing of some posters here looks ridiculous."
Now what was your point? I can see that in case you are a nazi victim of no-Israeli background (for instance a pole whose family was murdered by the nazis and who never benefited from the relationship between Germany and Israel) you probably have an even better "right" to cry Auschwitz at every opportunity than those Israeli people. So in case those posters Pumpernickel mentioned actually have this kind of worse-than-Israeli-background my original point becomes pointless.
What I also conclude from your post is that (if you are right about that generally good attitude of the poles) I might better have chosen Poles instead of Israelis for my point. But I didn't because I don't have these personal experiences with Poles (in Poland).
Dear Pumper, Forlana,
I just recently came across a terrific back-and-forth debate on "Nationalism versus Cosmopolitanism", between Michael Lind and Ulrich Beck (you'll remember Beck as the author of the Merkiavelli piece), hosted on the "Breakthrough Institute" website – see http://thebreakthrough.org/about and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Shellenberger . The debate on the Breakthrough website is VERY relevant to the thread on nationalism that appears a bit below. So both of you might want to read all of it, if this topic does indeed interest you.
Clearly, given the nature of the institute, someone might argue that its "bias" would be towards Ulrich Beck and cosmopolitanism. But that would be wrong. Michael Lind's essay, "Against Cosmopolitanism", is one of the most sophisticated attacks on liberal cosmopolitanism yet written, and it's a simply terrific apology for the ongoing relevance of the Nation-State – see http://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/journal/past-issues/issue-1/against... . Even if I ultimately disagree with Lind, he is no dummy, and he is no hick – see http://thebreakthrough.org/people/profile/Michael-Lind .
Lind's essay is sophisticated precisely because he is uncommonly aware of the perspective of the other side, i.e. the perspective of unapologetically globalist, militant cosmopolitans like myself. Usually those who defend the Nation-State are – let's just say – a bit "small-town" in both their emotions and in their thinking. Lind is not. His range of cultural and religious references is broad, and he knows the intellectual legacy of cosmopolitanism better than most of those who defend it. For instance, he has people like me well-pegged as "secular providentialists" (that is to say, when I am thinking politics): agreed, politically speaking, I am one.
More on Lind's essay below.
To follow the debate, first go to the "leader" webage, titled "The Nation-State and its Discontents" at http://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/journal/debates/against-cosmopolita... . Then read Lind's essay. After which, read the responses by Ulrich Beck at http://thebreakthrough.org/journal/debates/against-cosmopolitanism-a-bre... , and by Nils Gilman and Michael Costigan at http://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/journal/debates/against-cosmopolita... .
But here's the thing: the replies are almost as good.
Gilman and Costigan's analysis of the real as opposed to merely imagined threats to Nation-State sovereignty in the modern world – TCO's (trans-national criminal organizations) and transnational financiers – is one of the more breathtaking pieces of geopolitical analysis you are likely to come across. As on this blog, their central topic is Sovereignty, but a good subtitle for their essay might be:
"The Paradox of Sovereignty in a globalizing world of unprecedented arbitrage: you have to lose your Sovereignty to keep it."
I won't spoil the essay by saying more; only that it's breathtaking.
Along similar lines, Ulrich Beck's reply takes Lind to task on the purely "descriptive" side: Beck insists that actually things are already much more cosmopolitan "on the ground" (and inside our bodies) than Lind seems willing to admit. And that the singular geopolitical fact of our time is the inadequacy of Nation-State politics to meet the challenges of our current cosmopolitan condition, so described.
Lind then gives the closing reply, at http://thebreakthrough.org/journal/debates/against-cosmopolitanism-a-bre... . Again, I won't spoil it, except to quote Lind's last line:
"Nothing lasts forever, but nobody has yet provided any compelling reason to believe that we are living in the twilight of the nation-state era rather than in its dawn."
Actually, someone did: Hegel, circa 1820, in the PHILOSOPHY OF RIGHT (Junior groans….:). After having provided the most sophisticated and philosophically coherent account of the Nation-State ever written, Hegel writes:
"One more word about giving instruction as to what the world ought to be. Philosophy in any case always comes on the scene too late to give it....
When Philosophy paints its grey in grey, then has a form of life grown old. By Philosophy's grey in grey it cannot be rejuvenated, but only under-stood. The owl of Minerva spreads its wings and flies only within the falling of the dusk." – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elements_of_the_Philosophy_of_Right .
In other words: the Nation-State is an old institution, not a young one. And the Nation-State was already old back in 1820, when Hegel first published the Philosophy of Right.
At the very least, everyone must admit that the Nation-State has been thought to death. In this quote Hegel claims that Philosophy is essentially a retrospective activity, one that can only provide complete understanding of a given stage of historical reality after it has occurred, not before. Hegel provided just that understanding of the Nation-State in 1820; ergo, we are now living in a historical reality that is in many respects post-national (but not all respects, and not even most).
Now to be sure, the more inclusive institutions that might eventually replace the Nation-State are still horribly nascent. Many of them could prove still-born. Furthermore, I would agree that we do not living in a globalized world, but rather, in a world still globalizing; not in a cosmopolitan world, but rather, in a world that is still cosmopolitanizing.
Even so, surely everyone can agree that on one basic point, Lind is quite obviously wrong: we are not living in the "dawn of the Nation-State". We are not living in the 1492, when Ferdinand and Isabella finally consolidated Spain; or 1494, when Charles the VIII of a newly consolidated France first attacked Italy's city-states.....
All best wishes,
Dear Pumper and Forlana,
Although I really enjoyed reading the replies to Lind's article, I think they still failed to get to the bottom of the dispute. Logically speaking, they were somewhat weak, merely "skeptical" replies. They were great on poetry and rhetorical zing; weak on substance. They tacitly granted that World Federalist Government is a pipe-dream, at least at this stage of World History. So instead they argued that the Nation-State is in no great shape either.
Now on the actual current state of the world – as divided into still quite nationalistic "regional blocs" – Lind is simply terrific. If read as pure description, with all the "prescriptive" bits excised, Lind's essay is perhaps the best summary of the geopolitical state of the world circa 2012 that I have yet to read, anywhere. It is also seems clear that Lind knows the literature in "Nationalism Studies" quite well. If you know that literature, you will recognize his coded references with phrases like "imagined communities", or the "liberal versus illiberal nationalism" continuum.
This is also the first time I have come across an explicit contrast drawn between "Liberal Internationalism" versus "Cosmopolitanism". Lind defends the former, as against the latter. Truly fascinating, and worth thinking about more.
In his final response to this critics, Lind then counter-counter-argued that really big, mega-sized Nation-States could indeed be in perfectly good shape, if they wanted to. A liberal free-trader like the United States could pursue much more "selfish", protectionist policies, and re-industrialize overnight, if it wanted to; the United States could make life absolute hell for transnational financiers, the .1-percenters, if it wanted to; and the United States could no doubt nuke cocoa plantations in Latin America, if it really wanted to.
And here I have to say that I do agree with Lind's realism.
However, what I do not agree with, is Lind's implicit assumption that the only actors in the international arena who have any kind of genuine choices or potential agency, are the super-sized whales: the mega-nation-states of 100 million, or 500 million, or 1 billion or more. Perhaps it's not obvious at first, but Lind paints a picture of small nations as thoroughly disempowered (description), who should then simply resign themselves to their condition of disempowerment (prescription). As such, Lind makes exactly the same supposed "is/ought" mistake that he accuses cosmopolitans of making (as Beck rightly points out).
2. THE FALLACY OF HUME's IS/OUGHT FALLACY
Needless to say, I strongly disagree with Lind when he claims that only cosmopolitanism runs afoul of Hume's "is/ought" problem. All political ideologies – and especially nationalism – run afoul of this problem.
So much so, that many think that Hume was simply wrong: to derive an "ought" statement from an "is" statement is perhaps not a fallacy. Natural Law theory, for instance, rooted in Aristotelianism and Stoicism, proceeds from some common-sensical psychological and sociological observations about what "is" the case (human sociality, what makes us happy, what conduces to human flourishing, etc.), to then draw conclusions about "should" be the case (the pattern of a society that would promote the same).
Nationalists of course are long-practiced in the art of sliding blithely back and forth between description and prescription, between "is" and "ought" statements: witness Viva in the thread below, slicko-sliding between "the Nation-State has been historically entrenched", to "the Nation-State should continue to be historically entrenched". And Lind himself does the same, especially with regard to Europe.
Lind squarely faces the unavoidable truth that political and economic agency in the contemporary world demands size: if your country is not large, it doesn't have it. This Realpolitik element in Lind's thinking is incredibly refreshing. For instance, just as I have suggested on the blog in the past, Lind argues that sovereignty is not an absolute concept, and that some states are more sovereign than others:
"In a world of sovereign nation-states, the biggest nation-states are most sovereign…".
Next, Lind notes that European nations on their own are small, and relatively powerless. And further along he observes the obvious, that it has indeed proven a challenge to weld Europe's small countries into a European superstate. So, far, so good.
But then Lind argues that because the European project has recently encountered some severe bumps (description), it was a foolish project in the first place (prescription). So perhaps best to drop the whole project, and let "nature" (or whatever) take its course (prescription). Ergo, the biggest polities that have no such balkanization problems to overcome, will rule the 21st century (description). Slip-sliding away…..
Now again, when Lind writes in purely descriptive mode – when he does Realpolitik analysis and does not prescribe – I find him very convincing. Most of what he writes of a purely descriptive nature sounds awfully familiar: I've written as much on the blog, albeit far less elegantly.
But Lind seems to imagine that small states have no choice but to lie down and let the big, billion-person bullies walk all over them. He implicitly assumes that small states, as mere minnows swimming in the wake of whales, have no options other than remaining irrelevant minnows.
What's missing in Lind's analysis, of course, is reflexivity. The average, reasonably well-educated European knows the size-means-real-sovereignty argument just as well as Lind does. Southern Europeans especially understand the argument, almost instinctively, which is why they are so pro-Eurozone, and so pro-Eurofederalist. They know that if Europe returns to a condition of balkanized petty nationalisms, everyone in Europe will suffer, all Europeans will be thoroughly out of the running, and Lind's prediction will come true.
Now here's the interesting thing. If enough Europeans explicitly reject Lind's "prescriptive" counsel – that they should just disaggregate, like good little minnows, and let the whales dominate the play of World History – then it would be exactly their rejection of Lind's "ought" prescription that changes the "is" outcome. In social systems, reflexive knowledge can and does change outcomes, as social-scientists long ago recognized. If the actors in a social system learn what social scientists predict they will do, or "should" do, that knowledge alone will change what people actually do.
So a newly embraced "ought" – "we should unify, to should become a big whale ourselves" – can dramatically change what actually is the case.
That really does get to the nub of the dispute between Europhobes and Europhiles, doesn't it?
I think all intelligent, well-informed people today would agree with Lind's analysis, taken purely as description. But where Euroskeptics and Eurofederalists disagree, is precisely in the "ought" or "should" conclusions that each of them draws from that analysis.
The Euroskeptics think that Europe's comparatively tiny nations (tiny, when compared to the likes of China or India), should just accept their fate, remain less than fully sovereign, less than fully economically competitive, and less than fully democratically in control of the policies that govern their economies, and that determine their fates.
Whereas the Eurofederalists simply point out the obvious: minnows have a choice. They can and indeed they should band together, to pool their sovereignty and regain some measure of control over their futures.
Whales need not rule the ocean, and a planet with only three whales and no minnows would be a most impoverished planet indeed.
All best wishes,
OK, let me try to clean it up a bit to make it pass this time:
Theo, Theo … let me repeat … you are going about all this the wrong way. To be respected as primus inter pares around here as a dolphin you have to clobber the sharks hard, reduce them to tears and do it below 300 words and never go CONTINUED IN NEXT POST as they will simply come for you from all sides and tear you to pieces.
It should be so easy for you. On the one side you have viva in Hyde mode. Bump him hard, as only you know how but, for crying out loud, do it within 300 words as otherwise you are a sitting duck because the prols never read anything above 300 words, and that includes me. Life is too short. We simply have not got the time and we certainly do not have the patience.
I and forlana will, of course, read it out of a sense of loyalty but we will be gnashing our teeth doing it. On the one hand admiring your footwork and admitting that it was well worth putting down long-windedly but on the other hand lamenting (for some reason I keep using this word) that it will be wasted on the sub-prols around here, viva and Rote Unterhosen. Oh, he will read it for sure hoping for another "howler" to come along like your elogy for the German Leitkultur, he with his prominent nose to sniff out German guilt.
Theo, for the last time because hereafter I shall give up on you, be brief and say it in your own words, no links needed. You have got it inside as proven often. They cannot match your prose and depth. They are sharks. You are a Dolphin! Remember that!
And let me have this contact address so we can get to know each other better, even discourse in German, the language of Kant.
Dear Theomorph, Pumpernickel, Viva, Junoir, JoeMilovan, MC, Birtnick, Like-he was saying, Zorbas and all who participate in these elongated exchanges, whom I did not mention directly.
That's how it goes here, everyone has a story to tell, without that there'd be no exchange. Thus I propose, Theo, that we don't exlude anyone. Please note that even your cicerone and my knight - Pumpernickel, though kvetches and carps like hell, does not really exclude anyone. That's the specifity of such a public virtual space, 'uninhibited' as Maher, whom I always read and Pumper always does, and you could too, even if you don't agree, to confront own views/personalities with the most dramatically opposite, sometimes of the kind you will never have an occassion to meet/talk in your normal life. Long live internet, no? :)
Excuse this too long and unasked for advice... but PN is correct - noone will read you if you write essays here, and simultaneously declare you are uninterested what MOST of this virtual spot think about it. You get my drift? :--)
Speaking of PN. - did you read that scandalous post of his -before it was deleted - 'the first really beautiful and intelligent woman came to this pub...'. Sometimes we are joking but NOW you are in deep, hmmm... trouble, Pumps. I will not easily forget it. Beware!
>'uninhibited' as Maher,<
Hi Sigismund! :)
I ment as Maher says. S A Y S.
Dear Pumper, Forlana,
Thanks for the feedback, and very well taken.
Honestly, I think it's an academic thing. I know this might be hard to believe, but I really, really DON'T like just exchanging soundbite-polemics. I can't even begin to describe how much it's not my "scene". Nothing gets learned via polemical exchange; and for me, there are definitely much better ways of socializing…..
I found the exchange between Lind and his critics illuminating, precisely because each side wrote a mini-essay, and not a soundbite. And even then, Lind's critics still did not get to the bottom of the fundamental difference in perspective. They still failed to expose Lind's "should" statement: that small nations should just resign themselves to their condition as historical, political, and economic irrelevancies.
For me, achieving this kind of understanding is the "big payoff". Whereas exchanging defecation-humor with Birtnick is not my idea of a good time (BTW: Why are German toilets built they way that they are? Answer: because Germans like to see what they produce.)
Some of the best exchanges I've had on this blog have been with Joe Solaris, precisely because Joe posts long, and Joe doesn't mind when others do as well. I just recently posted something that you might not have seen, Pumper (it was domino-deleted, because attached to another errant post), in which I made the wild speculation that the Eurocrisis is not getting resolved, perhaps because baby-boomers are now in charge. As everyone knows, the baby-boomers are the "me" generation: very selfish and narcisstic; good at protest, criticism, destruction; not very good at constructing anything. (All countries in Europe had baby-booms, too; Germany's dates roughly 1955 to 1967, and Merkel was born 1954, so she is definitely a boomer).
Joe not only agreed with me 100 %, Joe then responded at length, with lots of really interesting details about "political generations" in Italian life, and their consequent effects. He has a sociologist friend who has been exploring precisely this question, in relation to the Eurozone crisis. Joe also agreed with me that Oliviero Toscani, of Benetton Ad fame, is a jerk, and that Toscani's baby-boomer pseudo-Leftism is mere marketing gimmick.
Joe, if you are reading this: THANK YOU. Alas, your reply was also domino-deleted.
Forlana, the criticism that the other side offers is rarely genuine, substantive criticism. It's just invective and insult. It does not actually advance anyone's thoughts on these subjects one iota. It's not good for one's heart to respond to such pseudo-criticism in kind; and such pseudo-criticism certainly does not improve one's brain.
As I said, I really do need to find another place to blog, where discussion has a different character, but the focus is still very much on EU issues. Once again: Joe, any good suggestions?
All best wishes,
Oh dear, oh dear ... forlana
What can I see in my defense. How about this one: On the instigation of Rote Unterhose I became a Mormon and thus are entitled to four of them: Bobonne, you, Anjouli and ... hmmm ...
who was the other one? ... not The Brain, fat and pimpled as she squats in front of her PC in Maher's dungeon ... nor the suppressed Führergroupie ... hmm .. oh yes, apolitica, this American lady with class ... thinking of her often but too embarrassed now by viva and The Nose to make an appearance.
Theo, I agree with every word and commiserate. BTW Sanmartinian, if reading this, will also agree 100%.
You are a Professor of Philosophy and this here is a Pub with a lot of vulgar characters mostly on the Anglo side. Imagine you walk into such Pub and then give a lecture, a very good, worthwhile lecture on the Eurozone and why it is desirable, in an English Pub not in Cambridge. The raspberries will be aplenty. It is not that some of us are not able to grasp and appreciate what you have to contribute, which is far superior to the stuff any of us could produce even when trying, as we do not have your training.
It is that we just are not in the mood and, even more important, do not really have the time, usually, to hang around unless either indisposed and in bed or enjoying oneself outrageously, the latter being my case today. You cannot force-feed us, zu unserem Glück zwingen. RU will say that this is typically German and despicable. I agree.
I am only here for the beer and to exchange deep BUT SHORT philosophical reflections with zorbas whilst chasing Anjouli around . Pity junior abandoned us again in disgust. He knows why. Junior is the best, the most wholesome of us. What I was always striving to be but never succeeded.
Theo, I fear that I will overwork the subject. You are correct on almost, but not on all accounts in your last comment. Yet seeing all you see - you DO come back here. You don't lock yourself in an academic situation. Do you see my point? "We" are not so different, though perhaps more eager to differentiate our professional ways from these here.
One does not meet in everyday life so many different characters, and so many motivations to participate in a quasi-anonymus, quasi-political spot like this one.
Advice well-taken!
Agreed, there is a certain "exotic" attraction to a blog like this. I get the impression that in real life, people like you, me, Joe, Pumper, etc. might actually run into each other, at an academic lecture perhaps. But never in a million years would I get to know someone like Birtnick, or some of the other Euroskpetics on the blog. So as I wrote to Pumper a while back, yes, there is a weird sort "entertainment value" to participation here. Up to a point. And fully agreed, "long live the Internet!"
But so many of the Euroskeptics on the blog are just so, well, belligerent, bellicose, and inclined towards bullying. Not all of them, mind you; but many. And so many of them have no genuine interest in any kind of serious thought about the Eurozone crisis. They are well and truly satisfied with the most medieval, primitive, and jingoistic forms of Manichean narrative. If they had lived 500 years ago, they would have been quite happy with "the witch did it" as pseudo-explanation, and they would have enjoyed a snack or two watching her burn.
Joe Solaris, by way of contrast, is a contemporary European rationalist. Joe hates what Germany is doing right now, but Joe is enough of a political animal, and enough of a critical thinker, that Joe knows that a really good explanation of contemporary German behavior has to go deeper than, "Oh, the Germans were always anti-democratic Nazis, and they still are." So having a conversation with Joe about why the Germans are screwing up so badly, and getting everything so horribly wrong in the Eurozone crisis, proves illuminating.
But, aside from mere entertainment value, what honestly is to be gained from listening to people who want to demonize contemporary Germans as just bad, bad, all bad?
Now re Pumper: yep, I did read his naughty and saucy post. Here I am just speculating, Forlana, but maybe it's kind of an old-guy-of-good-character thing?
Old guys sort of HAVE TO "sin in their hearts", because they're just too nice, and devoted to their wives, and strict in their sense of duty, to ever cheat for real. I've never been married, but many male friends tell me that you soon have to resign yourself to a fairly minimal diet of s**. Even if your marriage is a good one.
So if men-of-good-character are devoted husbands who love their wives, as companions; and if they love their children, and the homes they have created for them; and if they enjoy their lives in general, then never in a million years will they cheat for real. But heh, guys are guys, we are cursed with too much testosterone screwing up our brains, even in old age, and that testosterone has to find an outlet somewhere, somehow….. Better in print, than in some sordid hotel room with a mistress.
It's a theory: Pumper, what do you think? Too cynical about marriage? Too Freudian-hydraulic in my "testosterone must find an outlet" psychology?
Back to Forlana: A few years ago some researchers gave a group of women testosterone patches to wear for a week, so that could actually "feel" what it's like to be a man, constantly primed for sexual stimuli. After a few days the women in this experiment were in utter agony, counting the minutes until it ended. They HATED it. They hated the feeling of total loss of self-control, the feeling that they could not control their lust. After the experiment they found themselves blessed with a new-found sense of empathy – or better, pity – for the plight of men.
All best wishes,
Many thanks, and great pub-metaphor. Yes, raspberries aplenty, and foolish of me to expect otherwise, on a public, open-access blog.
You see, the thing is, I've asked around – colleagues and such like – and none can give me any suggestions as to where I might find a better, more professional and "rationalist" sort of EU-issues blog.
Apparently Paul Krugman makes it a point to blog on certain sophisticated economics websites, because Krugman finds that his economic thinking is sharpened thereby, especially when confronted by whacky heterodox economic theory. Yesterday's heresy (e.g. Keynes) might be tomorrow's orthodoxy, so Krugman also has a purely professional interest in suffering at the hands of anonymous bloggers. But the websites where Krugman does such blogging seem to be semi-closed-access. So I guess I am looking for the EU-issues equivalent. I come back here because I still haven't found that alternative.
Most people don't know this, but many Philosophers tend to look down on politics as "beneath" them. Not all, but perhaps most do. The "core" of the profession are subjects like Metaphysics, Philosophy of Mind, Logic, and Epistemology, and these are about as far removed from politics as you might imagine. Sure, ideas developed in these core subjects will have political implications, about 100 deductions down the road. But not immediately. My own personal specialty is the Philosophy of Time, and perhaps when I was younger one of my motivations for specializing as such, was precisely because the questions that I ask and try to answer professionally are so blessedly apolitical.
So, to be perfectly honest, none of my immediate colleagues are interested in the Eurozone crisis, except to the extent that most people are, i.e. how will affect their pocket-book, and their pensions? The European intellectuals who take the most interest in the Eurozone crisis tend to be either sociologists or political scientists by training (e.g. Ulrich Beck), or a philosopher-sociologist like Habermas (he has a background in both subjects).
Furthermore, I don't really want to mix up my professional reputation as a Philosopher of Time, with anything I might think or write in relation to the Eurozone crisis. I know full well that I am a complete novice; I am not a professional Euro-journalist, or Euro-politician; and I also have absolutely no interest in carving out a second niche as a Eurozone political philosopher. But I am a European citizen, and I do think Europe has incredible potential, and a wonderful future ahead of it, if it could only see its way through this current mess. So I suppose it's as a loyal European that I blog here: a European who wants to be more than merely superficially informed. As Forlana suggests, I am not completely happy to remain locked up in an ivory tower.
In any case, have begun searching "Euroblog" in earnest, for possible alternatives. Mabye I'll get lucky, and find something more my speed.
All best wishes,
"Joe Solaris, by way of contrast, is a contemporary European rationalist. Joe hates what Germany is doing right now,...."
Well, you could put it that way.
'they (the Germans) have done nothing but bring death and destruction to Europe for 150 years - and they are doing it again. ('Time bomb', Nov 16, 9.56)
'The damage Germany is perpetrating in Europe will be of historic proportions, and will soon rank together with the destruction of World Wars I and II'. ('The red-eyed walk to banking union', Oct 24, 17.02)
'When is Europe going to get rid of the German Christian Democrats, Christian Social Union and Free Democrats? Three parties that are stuck in the 1940's and with their heads filled with Germans-as-the-master-race propaganda'. ('Red-eyed walk...', Oct 22, 22.05)
etc, etc, etc.
Hello Theomorph,
I have a problem with my Economist account- for 36 hours they have not been sending me notification of those writing replies to my posts. I am not sure why.
My response got deleted? I was not sent notification of that either...
I love reading your essays. They remind me of the days when my philosophy professor forced me to read "Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics".;-)
No good suggestions come to mind regarding another blog. Where else but the Economist can one run into Americans both North and South and Asians willing to discuss European issues?
BTW, I read recently that the Agnelli family holds 4.6% of the Economist shares(!) I think they have enjoyed this newspaper's attacks against arch-rival Berlusconi.
I confess I am in much better spirits after the recent approval of aid to Greek and Spanish banks. A deal on Cyprus is apparently around the corner. The spread on Italian 10-year bonds was dropping like a rock today.
If Pumpy should head south of the Alps - and a trip could be arranged to Trieste - I would propose a short jaunt to Maribor (just over two hours by car from Trieste) which, together with Guimaraes in Portugal, is European Capital of Culture for 2012. Dinner in the former Austro-German city of Marburg?
Dear Joe Solaris, Crammerboy,
Joe, in another thread you asked for a re-post of the material that Crammerboy had collated, culled from your postings of a few weeks ago.
Unfortunately, that was part of a sequence of posts that were domino-deleted. So with your permission (and Crammerboy's), here is his post again. You are both in a sense "authors" of this post. So if either of you have any objections, please respond, letting the TE moderators know that you would like what I reposted below deleted.
I figured that it was OK to do this, because we cut-and-paste each other's words all the time. And Joe, you also specifically asked for a repost. So I hope this is OK.
Best regards,
PS – My computer has a continuous backup system, so even when TE Moderators delete others' comments, with only a bit of work usually I can find just about any previous version of a TE blog-page.
"Or, like me, have you simply become sick and tired of talking with nutty, ultra-right-wing Europhobes who believe in demons?" - Theomorph
Please allow me to respond for Joe.
Er, no. What I got "sick and tired" of was overbearing German policy towards the rest of the Continent, so I went elsewhere.
Here are some of the comments I have written lately, taken from just the first TEN pages of my 'comments history'.
'Ever since Germans united in the 1800's they have done nothing but bring death and destruction to Europe for 150 years - and they are doing it again.' ('Time bomb', Nov 16 9.56)
'And yes, German autos should be boycotted'. ( same)
'No "TRANSFER UNION" is a pretext Germans shout at the rest of Europe to avoid assuming any responsibility for the mess they helped create. ( 'Battle of the third Bailout', Nov 15, 10.34)
'Germany has no intention of resolving this crisis, and has steadfastly taken every step to worsen the crisis'. (same)
'At each step, Berlin and the Bundesbank have been extremely reliable in choosing a hard-nosed policy that will cost everybody the most in the long run. (But which in the short-term has the rest of the world in awe at Germany's ability to bully the rest of the EU) ( 'Givers and takers', Oct 31, 18.16)
'It is merely about counting pfennigs while losing hundreds of billions, destroying both the EU and Europe, and leaving damage that will require half a century to repair' (same)
'You Germans are ready to tell yourselves any lies to support your own arrogance and self-righteousness' (same)
'Germany has good PR and is a bully, little more'.( 'Kiss of life...etc .Oct 26, 9.20)
'The damage Germany is perpetrating in Europe will be of historic proportions, and will soon rank together with the destruction of World Wars I and II'. ('The red-eyed walk to banking union', Oct 24, 17.02)
'Germany is destroying Europe. Period, end, stop. A pity there is not enough intelligence either in Germany or in Merkel's government to recognise this'. (same, 19.09))
'And Germany will of course block any rational action aimed at heading off a worse crisis... (Kiss of life.. Oct 21, 19.52)
'As P.J. O'Rourke once wrote: "You can always reason with a German bureaucrat. Of course, you can also try to reason with a barnyard animal for all the good it will do you." ( same)
'WHEN is Europe going to get rid of the German Christian Democrats, Christian Social Union and Free Democrats? Three parties that are stuck in the 1940's and with their heads filled with Germans-as-the-master-race propaganda'. (Red-eyed walk, Oct 22, 22.05)
'Oh c'mon Josh. You cannot call me racist just because I point out that Jens Weidmann has a face that would have looked perfect in an SS officer's uniform 70 years ago'. ;-) Clearly what Schickelgruber & Co. would have considered a perfect Nazi Aryan face, eh? (Kiss of life ,Oct 21, 17.46)
'Given the stinginess of Germans in refusing to contribute their fair share to righting this mess, we should have told the Germans to go stuff themselves 3 years ago - and refused to participate in the bailouts'. (same Oct 21, 16.53)
@ Joe,
Just wanted to note, in this thread, that six or seven threads further down the blog you explained quite well your perspective on current German unwillingness to effectively lead - see http://www.economist.com/comment/1768747#comment-1768747 . And again, wanted to reiterate that I fully agree with – and fully empathize with – your frustration and anger as regards German dithering, and the stupidity of German austerity policy.
I merely reposted the above, because you explicitly asked for it. I hope the TE moderators don't mind; needless to say, if they do, they can always delete the post.
Furthermore, although your justifiable anger in the comments above is apparent, it is also quite clear that you systematically try to resist casting "racist" (or more accurately, "ethnistic") aspersions on Germany, and/or Germans. You remain relentlessly focused on the defects of German policy, and their consequences. You remain focused on what Germans are actually doing - and German CDU conservatives specifically - in the here and now, circa 2010 - 2012; and not on who Germans are, circa 2012; or worse, who they were, circa 1933 to 1945. The ferocious speed with which the Germanophobes on this blog jump to the latter kind of Manichean explanation, really does say more about them, than it says anything about contemporary Germany, or even the CDU.
As many have suggested (for instance, in article after article in the Guardian – see http://www.guard ian.co.uk/world/series/germany-the-accidental-empire and http://www.guard ian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/20/germany-europe-reluctant-champions . German inaction and dithering is in part a kind of "learned helplessness". Contemporary Germans might be self-confident economically, but they are not self-confident politically or culturally. This is a "forgiving" sort of explanation.
A much less forgiving explanation is that German conservatives are stupid and greedy. Just like conservatives who enjoy the fruits of economic success in Holland, Denmark, or Sweden, many German conservatives simply fail to realize that their success is only in part due to "hard work", "superior economic management", or "better investment in R & D and technology". Their success is also due to export-led mercantilism, full stop. And mercantilism only works as long as other countries are willing to play the role of patsies.
Maher is absolutely right about this, and Maher also correctly points out that mercantilism works for only so long, even if other countries are willing to play the role of patsies. If trade is only one-way, it will eventually stop. If peripheral economies in Europe are not producing enough that core economies want to buy in turn, then core economies will no longer grow either (except in their trade, perhaps, with developing economies like China). Peripheral European economies will simply no longer have money to buy Merecedes Benzes or Miele washing machines. It's a no-brainer.
But for some reason, very few Germans – even those who are well-educated, and who should know better – seem unable to grasp the logic of this really quite basic, elementary insight of economics. And here one can and should blame Germany's CDU, for failing to educate its population in the dangers of mercantilist economics. The above argument is not hard to state, and if Merkel were to express this argument publicly and often, European politics would change overnight.
The European case is really not so different from the American case, because both continents have tried to make up a shortfall in aggregate demand by massive and unsustainable credit expansions – see http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8e68bc52-a671-11e0-ae9c-00144feabdc0.html , http://www.presseurop.eu/en/content/article/757211-america-and-europe-si... , and http://www.presseurop.eu/en/content/article/3012131-obama-and-europe-are... . In the United States, because there is relatively little inter-class socialism (compared to Europe), the middle-class and its aggregate demand (absent credit) has been shrinking. In Europe, because there is relatively little inter-regional socialism (compared to the United States), the aggregate demand in peripheral countries (absent credit) has also been shrinking.
[PS - I had to "break" the Guardian links, because the Economist's spam-filter seems to dislike Guardian references in posts. These should be easy enough to reassemble, and then just cut-and-paste them into your browser.
BTW, the Guardian's "Accidental Empire" article series on contemporary Germany is simply terrific.]
On both continents, conservatives of all stripes will militantly resist this line of analysis, because the solution that this analysis implies demands massive political and structural reform.
In the case of the United States, it demands programs to drastically reduce America's horrible GINI coefficient, one of the very worst in the world, putting money back into the hands of middle class consumers, via income expansion instead of credit expansion. In Europe, it demands programs to put money into the hands of consumers in peripheral countries: (1) via reflationary monetary and fiscal policies, continent-wide, as you advocate Joe, and (2) via a "Marshall Plan" for peripheral countries – see http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/10/opinion/sunday/europe-needs-a-german-m... , http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/05/marshall-plan-europe... , http://www.presseurop.eu/en/content/article/760111-only-new-marshall-pla... , and http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/16/leipzig-proves-value-bailout... . Germany has already done this once, for East Germany. Why contemporary Germans are so reluctant to try it again, for Europe writ large, is a good question. After all, if peripheral countries grow again, become richer, and their aggregate demand increases, core countries like Germany will only benefit.
Perhaps one of the reasons why German conservatives are unable to imagine this scenario, I think, is because they seem to be trapped in "zero-sum", mercantilist patterns of economic thought. They simply cannot imagine that a more successful Greece, Portugal, or Spain, would also mean a more successful Germany. When one proposes ideas like a "Marshall Plan" for peripheral countries, they only hear a great, uni-directional sucking sound. "Transfer Union" for German conservatives means nothing more and nothing less than a one-way transfer of wealth southwards. It's no using observing the obvious, that peripherals are not going to just sit on transferred wealth, and that they would have no choice but to spend much of it on goods and services (e.g. capital equipment) imported from the north.
As near as I can tell, only socialists in Europe have the capacity to see the limits of zero-sum, mercantilist economics. Only European socialists are willing to follow the analysis through, and propose and implement drastic countervailing measures.
So ultimately I do not even blame Merkel. Merkel is a conservative, so she cannot think such solutions. It does then seems that as long as the CDU remains in power in Germany, Europe will sink further into depression. Whereas America has long since solved its "conservative problem", over the course of two election cycles that firmly placed Obama in office.
The other big difference between America and Europe, of course, is that the United States is a continent-sized country that can pursue democratically legitimate, bold policy with speed and intelligence. Europe is not yet anything of the sort. So Europe's demand problem is a good deal more intractable.
Even so, Germans are not the enemy. Just like 80 years ago, during the last Kondatriev Winter, the real enemy, everywhere, is the zero-sum, economically unimaginative thinking of conservatives.
All best wishes,
PS – Many thanks for your kind words above re my "mini-essays". I am afraid, however, that you may be one of the very few….:) I really do have to find another place to blog. Pumpernickel has encouraged me to check out the Guardian, but apparently word-expectations there are even tighter, 100 words max.
So we agree, and you are now a socialist, looking for continent-wide European solutions? Full employment the primary goal, everywhere; business activity focused primarily on production, or provision of non-financial services; banking turned into a mere utility, serving the rest of the economy; severe continent-wide or even global controls preventing "financialization"? Apart from the critique of Germany's Harz "reforms", that seems to be what his article is recommending?
All best wishes,
I am blushing like a virgin bride. You are entirely too kind about my tirades.
(BTW, the Weidmann as SS officer was purely tongue-in-cheek and definitely over the top). OK, a few other comments were perhaps a bit harsh too.
Just as a side-note, I am not in favour of high inflation - I merely think that 4%, in a crisis such as this, would not represent high inflation. In the meantime, the liquidity crisis is harsh.
But I am quite happy now. The aid package for Greece gets approved - as does the Spanish bank plan, and instantly, over the last few days, Italian yields are dropping like a rock and 10-year bonds were at 4.5% today. And, over the last 10 days, I have just been paid for February, March and April invoices. Coincidence? They are also promising me May, June and July payments within a few weeks - definitely by Christmas. And, I am submerged with work through January.
Speaking of Philosophy - what do you think of Slavoj Žižek? A worthy contributor or overblown?
I was fed a steady diet of Leo Strauss and Allan Bloom in my university days in Washington, decades ago.
BTW, did you know that Pier Luigi Bersani has his degree in Philosophy?
Yes, did know that about Bersani, and he's also my kind of socialist, very pragmatic, not averse to liberal arguments, pro-capitalism, and not inclined to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. Over in France, seems that Melanchon is also a Philosopher by training, who taught at the Lycée level before entering politics. But despite his age Melachon is still radical left, still talking a rather unreconstructed sort of communist rhetoric. Or so it seems. Not my cup of tea. Whereas Bersani is.
Žižek? He's a bricoleur. A bit like a blender set to "frappé!" Sure, I like Žižek's ostensible commitment to metanarrative, and his rejection of postmodernism, Heideggerianism, and a few other fashionable contemporary isms. But Žižek's thought is still a bit too wild and anarchic, so much so, that it's often not clear what he is actually saying. He's an "aphoristic" Philosopher, at best. He's also a committed atheist, but I won't hold that against him; most Philosophers are.
I am perhaps a victim of my Anglo-American training, and prefer Philosophy that's clear, careful, focused, precise, articulate, and logically argumentative. I do love it when contemporary Philosophers formalize their arguments, using logical notation, and try to do as much in my own work. My work would probably not be Žižek's cup of tea, either, because I'm perfectly content to whittle away at rather narrow problems in the Philosophy of Time.
All best wishes,
uh, not quite what the article advocates
What do you think the article advocates? My French is OK, but not perfect.
Hi Josh,
In another thread you wrote:
"Comparing the EU to Nazi Germany or to Soviet Russia is so way out there that it doesn't even qualify as comedy anymore.
If the EU equals Nazi Germany and/or Soviet Russia, then the UK equals Fascist Italy and/or the Mullah's Iran.
Try something funny or get serious for a change."
Liked your post, and fully agreed. But look, those who use epithets like "Eurofascism" or "EU Imperial bureaucracy" are not interested in rational debate and argument. You repeat a lie often enough, they think, and people will come to believe it's true. Hey, the tactic worked for Hitler, and it works for the anti-EU press in London (which tells lies about the EU constantly), so why shouldn't it work for Birtnick or Viva on this blog?
It's also no use letting them know that the EU only has a democratic deficit to the extent that EU governments want it to. Maher acknowledges as much, and that is perhaps at least one reason why Maher does not employ Birtnick's rather purple "Euro-Fasicst" or "Euro-Nazi" labels. Maher no doubt knows that Europhiles with brains are never going to be convinced by Birtnick's rhetorically simplistic name-calling. If anything, quite the opposite.
Furthermore, to his credit, Maher acknowledges that Eurofederalists are at least consistent: that there is an "elementary logic" to the Eurofederalist position. For instance, most Eurofederalists do partially accept the Euroskeptic diagnosis, namely, that EU-construction has largely been an elite affair, and that many of the institutions constructed so far are not sufficiently democratically transparent institutions. But logically speaking, there are at least two possible responses to this problem. Either (a) scap the EU, or (b) if the EU is not sufficiently democratic, then make it massively so. Make it a fully democratic, Eurofederalist union. Wrecking the thing is not the only solution.
So there is a certain sense in which Euroskeptics are Eurofederalists best friends. Their incendiary prose and anti-EU arguments generate pressure for reform. Absent that pressure, perhaps the EU would take much longer to evolve into a more Eurofederalist direction.
Even so, at a purely logical level, criticizing the current or past EU as insufficiently democratic, is really not saying much of significance, because one could say exactly the same about most inter-governmental organizations. Does anyone criticize the WTO as "undemocratic" or non-transparent, for instance? It's a negotiating body, for pete's sake, not a Parliament, and no-one ever expects such things to resemble Parliaments. The EU is similar, just another inter-governmental international organization.
Except….. Yes, and here's the rub. The EU's founding Treaty of Rome implicitly "promised" that eventually it would evolve into a full, Eurofederal political union. So it's not really the actuality that Euroskeptics are criticizing, but rather, the actuality measured against the "promised" ideal. Or, perhaps even more germane, measured against the democratic ideal as currently instantiated in national Parliaments.
But obviously, no "promise" was ever made that the EU would evolve into a fully empowered Parliamentary institution according to a published schedule. And, needless to say, every time in the past that Germans and Italians have pushed for more "deepening" along Eurofederalist lines, they have encountered considerable resistance from the French – i.e. French national politicians. So again, the EU is not yet a fully democratic Eurofederal union, for the simple reason that few national politicians have wanted it to be, and many have blocked as much.
However, they Euroskeptics don't put things this way. The very last thing any of them might say is, "The EU has not proceeded quickly enough towards its promised end-goal of a fully empowered Eurofederalist Parliament." Instead, Euroskeptics tend to measure the "EU that is not yet democratic", against a standard or ideal – politics as conducted by national Parliaments – that obviously the EU does not approximate. An ideal that – in the past – no countries even tried to make the EU approximate.
All best wishes,
@ Josh,
In the following, more "conceptual" post, I try to make a stab at identifying the essence of Euroskeptic rhetorical tactics. But any and all assistance would be most appreciated.
There is a fundamental dishonesty in their pattern of name-calling ("Eurofascism", etc.) that goes beyond the merely obvious, i.e. the technical fact that the EU is obviously not a Fascist organization. Sure, by Birtnick's very loose definition of Fascism, all inter-governmental, international organizations that establish treaties that contain rules or "laws" binding on members, could be considered Fascist. This was, in effect, your implicit point above, Josh.
However, in what follows I am after something different – the actual nature of the tactic.
Her's a homely analogy to get the brain cells working.
You're an investor in a hotel project, and in their prospectus those selling the hotel are "realistic", and want to start out slow. They promise to construct a 1-star hotel, which in a few decades they will upgrade to a 2-start hotel, and so on, only stopping at 5-stars. A few decades go by, and they upgrade to 2-stars, and the upgrade works well enough. Next, and most recently, they try upgrading to 3-stars, and suddenly all sorts of things go wrong, and the upgrade experiences serious difficulties.
Along comes Birtnick, saying in effect:
"THIS HOTEL SUCKS!! IT'S NOT A 5-STAR HOTEL! And it shouldn't even aspire to 5-star hotel status in the first place! Lots of smaller, 5-star hotels already exist! There's no need for this hotel, in any version. It shouldn't be upgraded or downgraded; the thing should be destroyed. And why? Oh yes, because it's not a 5-star hotel!!!"
At one level, many British Euroskeptics are like investors who think management has simply over-reached itself. They were perfectly happy with minimal returns on a minimal hotel – the 1-star model. Sure, other investors might have been looking forward to management's promise of an eventual 5-star hotel – after all, it was right there in the original prospectus, the Treaty of Rome. But most British investors did not read the Treaty of Rome.
Now when such British Euroskeptics then criticize the 3-star model on the grounds that it's not fully 5-star, their criticism is certainly a bit dishonest, because they honestly don't even want the 5-star model. Birtnick would be absolutely aghast if his criticism of the EU's supposed "democratic deficit" were to lead to the opposite conclusion, namely, a fully democratic Eurofederal super-state.
Sure, Birtnick is content to criticize the 3-star EU of monetary union with 5-star democratic Eurofederalism hovering in the background, as ideal. But because Birtnick thinks that 5-star hotels this big are simply "impossible" (for whatever reasons), he doesn't think anyone can or will take the 5-star goal seriously. So he only uses it parasitically, as a kind of implicit conceptual stick to crack over the heads of Europhiles.
Like other British Euroskeptics, such as Junior, what Birtnick really wants is a return to the 1-star model. But if that's now impossible, because there does not seem to be any easy way to "retreat" on upgrades, he just wants the hotel destroyed.
But if Birtnick were to focus merely on saying THAT, he knows he would lose half his audience. In effect he would become Junior. Whereas what Birtnick is really after, is the hearts and minds of those who still have hopes that a 5-star hotel might be possible. He wants to crush those hopes and dreams with premature rhetoric, judging the EU by a standard that, in the past, nobody even wanted it to approximate, at least not initially.
It's as if the management had said, "OK, and for our next upgrade we are going to try 3-stars". And when that upgrade runs into problems, along comes Birtnick saying – see, they were totally uninterested in 5-stars, and have no intention of ever getting there! Even though, at this stage, their only stated goal was to upgrade to 3-stars, not 5-stars……
Josh, I am wracking my brain for an economical way of describing this tactic. Perhaps those in marketing might be able to help out here? Imagine a negative Ad about an ordinary, run-of-the-mill Volkswagen, an Ad that criticizes the VW because it's not a Ferrari. It's absurd, of course, because the VW was not designed to be a Ferrari. But obviously, for those who had hopes that their car might eventually "organically evolve" into a Ferrari, the negative attack is designed to put off buyers who at least wanted to start somewhere.
I teach informal reasoning, rhetoric, propaganda, and so on, but I am honestly at a bit of a loss how to technically describe this tactic. It's criticizing a thing for failing to be – in the past – something that it was not even striving to be. A runner works hard to break a personal record; does so; and then a resentful friend criticizes him/her for not having won an Olympic gold medal.
This is partly what philosophers call a "category mistake", but there's more to it than just that.
If anyone reading this has a background in advertising or marketing, and might be able to help "label" the tactic effectively, with just a single word or phrase, I would be most appreciative.
It must have a name, because it does seem like one of the oldest tactics in the book....
All best wishes,
PS – I posted my responses to your post here, in this thread, because my goal is to solicit genuine thought on this question. I would love to be able to give this rhetorical tactic a short, economical name or label. I think you can see why this might be useful.
So I am really only interested in the responses of those who also, for their own reasons, very much want to be able to give this rhetorical tactic a label, too.
All best,
"wracking my brain".
'racking' (stretching to the limit) not 'wracking' (destroying)
After all, you have a US/Canadian education, don't you?
That was priceless.
Theo comes, theo goes.
Imma miss this theo.
the article totally misses the point. In this environment it's not the supply driven bond market. It's the demand driven. It's not that French government really needs all this money. It's all the investors who run for exit from Greece, Italy, Spain bond markets have no place to park their money in this economic environment. By desperately buying French or German bonds in truckloads investors increased the debt of France or Germany to such level.
But no matter what, they still perceive French or German bonds as save heaven in comparison to the other European countries.
That's why the yields on 10 year French gov. bonds are only 2.1%. It means that French government pays practically nothing to borrow this huge 5.5 trillion dollar worth amount. Market is willing to gave them for free.
Moody's lowered French bonds rating? Doesn't matter! Yields are still minimal. If the current environment would exist in the other historical time the yields on French debt would shoot into stratosphere. Investors don't care about French productivity. That's not the point whatsoever today.
Their only need is to protect their money. And were these investors would park their money? Into Russian debt? Chinese debt? Gee, really? Which economy today or in the foreseen future would be better and importantly, safer investment?
Is it really the case that in the next year suddenly something would change in Europe that would make the other countries better place for investment than French bonds? With 2.1% yield on French 10 years bonds market says - no way. Not in the next 10 years anyway.
"And were these investors would park their money? Into Russian debt? Chinese debt? Gee, really? Which economy today or in the foreseen future would be better and importantly, safer investment?"
United States -still growing at ca 2% rate.
That's why big investment money has been escaping from EZ to U$A ASAP for at least 2 years.
[not that they're not moved there by Russian and Chinese oligarchs]
Good comment. You can't fool the markets and the markets know, despite what some of the leading economists say, that France are determined, as much as Germany is determined, to keep the Euro going. Monsieur Ollande is working hard on his "Mitterand" U-turn and this is being credited by the markets.
A solution for Greece is in the offing: a 50% haircut by the remaining institutional investors in 2014/2015, meanwhile pump some money into the Greek economy, reassign debt at lower interest, offer the Greeks an incentive for why they have to agree to reforms, a light at the end of the tunnel. It begins to look feasible at last long.
If Greeks watched Formula One yesterday and saw how Sebastian Vettel managed to drive into World Champion position from the very back of the pack after a series of mishaps they might have taken heart.
A bit of German spirit is all it takes. Gambatte née!
" Monsieur Ollande is working hard on his "Mitterand" U-turn and this is being credited by the markets."
No the markets prefer to make no benefits in France rather than losing their asselts elsewhere. France has the reputation of being stable, with a basic economical ground that doesn't need foreign investments for growing. France always paid he debt, while that can't be said of Germany !
I think it was smart of Merkel to bring in the IMF to deflect some of the blame, if the rescue misfires. Also knowing that France, Italy and the rest are more likely to baulk when real money is requested helps the German position.
When the chips are down we shall see who are the loudest to howl and gnash their teeths. Might well be Monsieur Hollande, Monti and Rajoy when realizing that the money cannot just be printed but has to come out of their savings. Which savings?? Exactly!
As someone on the Guardian blog mentioned:
"France, which once assumed it would be the political leader, allowing Germany only economic dominance, suddenly looks instead like the factional leader of the struggling southern countries – Spain, Italy, Portugal and Greece."
To which I replied:
Provided Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece want to be led by France. It may look that way now when France is proposing less austerity and more printing money as the easy way out. Northern Italy, by work ethic, is much closer to Germany and suffers from the same predicament with its mezzogiorno around its neck yet, despite, doing amazingly well running primary surpluses. Spain and Portugal are stoically cutting down their unit labour costs, whilst Germany are increasing wages and pensions at an unprecedented rate to narrow the gap.
Greece may be the only one looking for French leadership.
your dream, german banks will get kaput, hello the german taxpayers !
unrests will not be so "harmful" like they will be in Germany when the euro will crash, because Germany's wealth only depends on exportations, like it did in the 1930 years... who's your new future fashist leader that you should put out of order right now?
boff, the Guardian is your new bible?
the Brit commenter is the ever view of the northern Protestants, they see France as the Catholic leader of the catholic countries.
It's not about printing money, that historically the French and the other southeners did lesser than the Germans, and or the Brits, it's about anti-latin understanding how a society can well fonction.
Austerity ain't the solution, it's just the mean that Germany found for subjugating the EZ (ie 1930 years... fashist regimes in Europe)
If such a southern club happens to get a existence, don't believe that the euro will still be our currency, nor of the Germans'. Then you can expect that France, Italy, Spain will recover their competiveness, as we have a larger Lebensraum opened across the Mediterranea and across the Atlantic latin America is till a "common wealth trading union for Spain and Portugal)
and such a latin club itself represents a far more numerous populated potentiality for trading than the northern petty club. Germany then would have to reduce her production of cars and of tool machines... hey, reduce the Mercedes as toys for collectioneurs
Finito your vacations in France then you'll have to show a pass and how much money you have for sustaining your stay, while we never think to pass vacations in Germany, excepted when we were forced
"it's just the mean that Germany found for subjugating the EZ"
Marie Le Pen, I got news for you:
France is not subjugated by Germany. In fact, France can spend all the money she wants, can leave the Euro whenever she wants, can do whatever she wants - and no evil German can do a thing about it.
Go, tell that Hollande, looks like he doesn't know.
ah Marine again, funny only the EU fans call me so, when I'm just a Gaullist !
NO, we can't spend our money like we want, there's a Gauleiter that tells us to follow its dictat.
yes, we can do that, leave the EZ, for the next election, sure the dilemn will be a hot topic, though the crisis will not give us that time, expect that the EZ will break before
I wonder if the Spanish and Portuguese are too keen to join your Club. What have you got to offer to them. A money printing machine? Pedro, Sammy, how do you feel about MC's observation?
The Italians, with the sad exception of Milovan Solaric, will be laughing you out of the chamber.
uh sorry, we aren't promoting a Holly Latin Empire like the Germans are doing for the admitted bankable northeners.
Just trading facilities with Spain and Italy would be OK
though didn't Joe advocated many times a EU army lead by France?
"I wonder if the Spanish and Portuguese (or Italians) are too keen to join your Club. What have you got to offer to them."
That is up to those states once they have reclaimed their democractic sovereignty, individually.
It is absolutely no concern of yours.
I doubt if any of them will be in a hurry to join another half-baked (foreign) currency union voluntarily after this fiasco.
I'm no EU fan. You are wrong about that as well.
If you are stupid enough to follow the gauleiter's orders...?
What is he supposed to do in case you don't obey?
He's supposed to go
Nein nein nein!
along with the familiar tantrum - you've seen the movies.
I'm not stoopid, then you're too, I don't buy into the german good will to solve the crisis, and will remind that to my government anytime we are consulted
"I'm not stoopid, then you're too"
"I don't buy into the german good will to solve the crisis,"
Oh no - sure. Absolutely. That the Germans are not capable of any solution should be quite clear by now.
But you didn't answer my question: What magic ability does the gauleiter have to stop you from doing your thing?
the Gauleiter was printing some ridiculous thing like "is µfrance the new Greece" for forcing us into his austerity program, which is ment to rescue the euro, necessary for the german corporations to carry on their surpluses in EZ, and for avoiding that the german banks get kaput after a euro crash
for equilibrating the trading balance between Germany and the EZ countries :
I don't buy german goods for myself, and still prefer the Toulouse sausage to the Frankfurt's, also the spanish Chorizo find its place at my aperitive programs... it's my austerity program
"the Gauleiter was printing some ridiculous thing like "is µfrance the new Greece" for forcing us into his austerity program"
So that are Germany's cruel measures to "enforce austerity" in your country? LOL
There is no such thing as "enforced austerity". Period.
If your politicians are dimwitted enough to make "Bild" the bible of their actions, following the suggestions of German newspapers (?!?), it's your fault, not Germany's.
I know, being responsible for yourself sucks, but do not blame this inability on the Germans.
@MarieClear wrote:
they see France as the Catholic leader of the catholic countries.
I did not know that France is a religious and even catholic country.
I only know that the Prussian king welcomed some ten or hundred thousands of French hugenottes and therefore around Berlin many Berlin have their native French names.
And in addition nobody in the world would mind if the Italians, Greeks, Spaniards and Portuguese would chose France as their leader.
Everybody would absolutely respect such a wise decision.
Perhaps this way the new Southern EU would work much better as ever before.
Perhaps the dream of Sarkozy of his ClubMed will come true very soon.
"Perhaps the dream of Sarkozy of his ClubMed will come true very soon."
your hidden wish, I wouldn't mind, I find the latin club more attractive and intelligent
Germany used/uses EU for her agenda, Germanisation of Europe, like she remnently wanted since the Kaiser !
Our politicians were/are idiots, though they progressively are opening their eyes
The people of France don't want of your Europe and are telling it loudly now
"The people of France don't want of your Europe and are telling it loudly now"
Do they? Isn't that great!
Now that's good news for a change because for the last 20 years they have been most submissive to all germanisation plans.
submissive is a low word, I would rather see "collaborative"
hey, it's like in WW2, the French at the begining were blurred by the German propaganda, that the Germans were there to protect the french population, when they only wanted to enslave them, like today , Germany wants to reduce them as wealth providers toward Germany
Something never changes in the German psyche
"t's like in WW2,"
Really? Is it?
Did the democratically elected French parliament agree to the German invasion in WW2? NO.
Did the democratically elected French parliament agree to the Vichy Regime? NO.
Did the democratically elected French parliament agree to Maastricht treaty? YES.
Did the democratically elected French parliament agree to Lisbon treaty? YES.
Did the democratically elected French parliament agree to fiscal compact? YES.
Case closed.
I didn't ment comparing "government" and or results of elections, but some remnent german characteristics, when we don't want to adopt their rules
As far as EU "elections", 55% of the French voted "no" at the Maestrich constitution
The french parliament was blackmailed for agreeing on the fiscal compat, that more than 60% of the french population rejected (ask Junior)
To day 67% of the French would reject Maestricht
You will never understand that the French are responsible for their actions, won't you?
"As far as EU "elections", 55% of the French voted "no" at the Maestrich constitution"
And YET the French reelected the same politicians who (supposedly) betrayed their own people....?
"The french parliament was blackmailed for agreeing on the fiscal compat, that more than 60% of the french population rejected"
Nobody put a gun at French parliamentarians. They agreed to fiscal compact voluntarily. Like they did with Maastricht, Lisbon etc....
You are living in a world of scapegoating.
Maybe its time for TE to analyse things closer to home: the UK is the real, real, rotten apple in the EU, is overburdened with debt (yes do give these real figures, bigger than any EU country member proportionally) and keeping happily its own currency printing machines going, till kingdom will come---and inflation. (or do you not remember its 15 % some good 20 years ago ?)
Yes, huge inflation in the UK is on the way, and how is TE going to explain this then ?....
Moreover , why does UK stay within the EU, when it wants to opt out of nearly everything EU, will not contribute to EU emergency currency back-ups, and will never join the Euro... Why not just leave EU, indeed why not, when the majority of UK people (mislead by nationalistic UK Media, that can't tell the diffrence betweeen trade with US and EU), does not want EU (see recent polls). It baffles me..
UK will wake up with a shock sooner than later, when its Moody etc. ratings will fall, as all others, yes, this rating disaster will happen within 1-3 years), and then reality will sink in...even with TE.
True, the best tactic to deviate attention from GB own huge financial debt problem, and ist fa(i)lling economy, is to make its readers focus on scandals abroad...but then, ironically, Napoleon did the same 200 years ago.. and with what results, I ask you.....?
Are you (TE) falling in the same trap, or setting the same trap up for your readers??
Nay, I say, TE can do a lot better than wearing neo-liberalism (browwnish) shirts and sending poison arrows abroad, just too find that even these do not protect from the cold internally, and, eventually.
Good Luck.
Greek companies face annihilation amid debt crisis. Hang in there Greece, or not. The rest of the world don't care. You're on your own, but remember we're all Europeans, which means you must bail out their banks at your own peril. Didn't you know it would come to this. Samaras is your leader now. How he tried for so long to be your PM. Well, now he got his chance...laughs
remember we're all Europeans,
Who says that we are all Europeans?
Ask a Frenchman if Germans are Europeans he will answer instantly with NO.
As any Greek in the streets if Germans are Europeans , they will instantly answer with NO
And the very same answers you will get in Spain, Portugal or Italy.
So I just would like to know from you which nations you are regarding as Europeans ?
German speaking people never before have been regarded as Europeans for example.
Did you know that?
No, I just remember how everyone was so happy about the Euro when it was launched, a new beginning for Europe. It appears someone didn't do their homework. The Germans did. They are well protected. Greece is utterly $crewed, unless you're a Greek elite with money to burn, and then your options are unlimited. Not a good union. Prefer America. Almost thought myself that it might be safe to move to Greece years ago. What in God's name was I thinking!
Yes, Zorbas, we are all Europeans – at least those of us who still hope for Eurofederalism!
Did you know that 63 % of Italians are in favor of a "United States of Europe"? Recent poll, March 2012, YouGov. Simply amazing. And even in Germany, 1/3 would be in favor, and of course, the German elite is in favor - or so the CDU and Merkel currently claim, or pretend, depending on your point of view. In France, the proportion is even higher, 38 %. Simply astonishing. In Britain, of course, support is much lower, but there too 10 % would favor full political union.
By my extrapolation, this means that there must be, at a bare minimum, at least 100 million Eurofederalists in the EU-27, and perhaps as many as 200 million. Which is quite incredible if you think about it.
See what I wrote to Pumper and Joe Solaris, 3 threads down, under "powermeerkat", for all the links to the YouGov poll.
If you ever come across a poll that asks the same question of the Greeks, the Spaniards, the Portuguese, etc., please let me know. I would really like to know, in reasonably hard figures, delivered by a reputable polling company (e.g. YouGov), what the total political "market" for Eurofederalism might be, in the EU-27.
So yes, we are all Europeans now – at least some of us…..:)
[To those who are Euroskeptics: please don't bother responding to this comment, and expect any kind of response in return. My policy is to no longer correspond with Europhobes.]
Always good to hear from you Morph. I'll take a look see down below when I get a chance. Time for lunch, vegetable dumplings and vegetable fried rice!
1/3 and 38% come across as a little weak, but hopefully like in America, the blinkered populace will have no say in the matter. How quickly though, that's the question. A Greek generation has been lost here. Not proactive enough for my liking, so I'm thinking more delays, which will take political patience, which is in short supply as of late.
Many of the older Germans I see blogging here still don't want any type of transfer union. They refer to the periphery nations as "spoiled children". The Union is not what I thought it would be Morph. I remember reading about it back in the 90s, in the travel section of the New York Times no less. We were very excited. It is not all Germany's fault either of course. We have the Markets to blame for a lot of this abhorrent behavior.
A lot of what I have been hearing for the past 3 years is, "Oh Greece, they lied you know." Or, "they're just spoiled children is all". I ask myself, what exactly has the standoffish approach accomplished when we look at Europe as a whole?
Disappointed? Yes, but put off? No. It has to work, because there are no other options. Time for Germany to lead. The Greeks will need to continue to suck it up, but I am very concerned about the fascist movement there.
Kindness to traveling strangers has always been a Greek strength. We have been put in a pressure cooker for too long, and it brings out the worst in people, or better put, it brings the worst elements of a society to the surface.
"Time for Germany to lead"
You misspelled "leave".
[To those who are Euroskeptics: please don't bother responding to this comment, and expect any kind of response in return. My policy is to no longer correspond with Europhobes.]
At least the EU-realists are not n**is and censors.
You Eurofederalists are the real Europhobes, ask the FPIGS. Thanks to Eurofederalism their increasing hatred is directed towards Germany, a country you appear to know so little about.
if only she wanted to leave !
she is too near her goal for leaving, having put the european nations on their knees, now she can reign !
"she is too near her goal for leaving, having put the european nations on their knees, now she can reign !"
Marie, pleeeeeeaase. Come on. Okay, I am sorry. Probably, I'm too naive. There is so much evil even in my town, country and everywhere else that I should expect the same to be true for your neck of the woods (somewhere in France, I guess). You got so carried away, I have no adequate way of response.
poor people of Germany, that are manipulated by their elite !
when will you make a popular revolution and not obbeying to the "chiefs"?
Hi Zorbas,
As always, you are a mensch.
I've been wondering about that Greek ability to "suck it up", and the 70 – 80 % of Greeks who still say that they want Greece to stay inside the Eurozone "no matter what the cost". Or I wonder about the 63 % of Italians who are still pro-Eurofederal, in March 2012. There is a kind of long-term-perspective and patience in the Mediterranean. Perhaps it's all the ruins strewn about, reminding everyone that a few years is nothing, when thousands of years of history are already behind you. Mediterraneans also have a kind of "grit" or "backbone" born of millennia, something that many northerners simply do not understand, because they imagine Italians, Greeks, and Spaniards just lazing about on sunny shores, eating olives and drinking wine all day.
I'll be posting something shortly, in which I explore a wild thought: that from the hindsight of 2300, perhaps the EU will be seen not as a French neo-Imperial project (1955 to, say, 2008); nor as a German neo-Imperial project (2008 to ?); but rather, as a Mediterranean neo-Imperial project (? to ?), whose capital should have been Rome.
I crunched some population-bloc numbers, to get a sense of how a Eurofederalist Parliament would actually work, once fiscal and monetary policy are subject to genuine continent-wide democratic control. It soon became evident that Mediterraneans and/or Peripheral nations, who need reflation, would completely dominate and outnumber the "austerians" in the core. So maybe the EU really is a Mediterranean "long game", to get the ball of European Civilization rolling southward again, to warmer climes….. The result of this "bloc arithmetic" really surprised me, too; will post in 3 or 4 days.
In future I will be posting in quiet corners of the blog, where the Phobes will have to work hard to find me, because I do value the interactions I've had with you, Pumper, and a few others. I also hope that Joe responds to my post (and doesn't let a certain someone do his talking for him). With any luck, eventually the other side will just give up trying to draw me out, when they realize that I really am committed to no longer corresponding across unbridgeable channels and oceans. Life's short, my academic workload is getting heavy now (end of term), so I just want to use the blog to explore a few "out-there" ideas, without much agro.
One final thought: that 1/3 or more on the continent strongly in favor of complete political union, in these times (the YouGov poll is 2012), is simply astonishing. Truly amazing. Sure, it's not 50 %, but remember, the 1/3 or more is the "core" vote. Then there are the pragmatists in between, who can swing either way; and then there are the outright Euroskeptics at the other end, who would block or oppose any further integration. On the continent the Euroskeptic group is not large, and it is always significantly outnumbered by "core" Eurofederalists, sometime massively so (as in Italy). Again, take a look at those YouGov numbers.
So all that Europe's currently vision-less, gutless, good-for-nothing politicians need to do, is come up with a half-decent Eurofederalist plan to convince the pragmatists in the middle. Given a good plan (i.e. a beautifully-written, coherent, very short, non-bureaucratic and poetic founding Eurofederalist document, akin to America's Declaration of Independence + Constitution), Eurofederalism would quickly become a "done deal", right across the continent (with the exception of Britain, of course).
The real problem right now, as many have suggested, is lack of vision and leadership. I know Pumper likes the spider-lady, but she's no Adenauer, and she's no Kohl. She's an Ossie-physicist-bureaucrat, a "little German" who rose to her level of incompetence (Murphy's law) about 2 years ago. I think Hollande is up to the job of taking France Eurofederalist. But Hollande needs equally visionary German, Italian and Spanish leaders as counterparties.
Gosh, if there were anything I could do to ensure that Steinbrueck replaces Merkel….. (sorry Pumper).
All best wishes,
"poor people of Germany, that are manipulated by their elite !
when will you make a popular revolution and not obbeying to the "chiefs"?"
I Don't know. Looks like it's not about to happen very soon.
What about your people? After all your parliament ratified Lisbon treaty against the will of the French. After all your Sarkozy and Hollande commited treason against the French repeatedly?
"Greece is utterly $crewed"
Don't you mean
Greece is utterly Scr€w€d
Yes that's right Morph. We need a visionary German here. I knew very little about Merkel at first. My wife would sigh and say, Ahh Angela. But as soon as I saw how the Greece situation was being handled, knowing what I know about sound monetary policy, I though, Oh my God! This will never work.
So, Merkel's being German in and of itself was never enough for me. This of course is how it should be for German's as well. I don't like Americans or Greeks simply becasue I identify with them as being American or Greek.
It was the wrong plan for a holistic Europe, and that is what I envisioned 20 years ago when we embarked on this unification journey.
Of course the British never intended to fully join. Their financial situation makes it essential that they go another route. Their Markets rule the globe, how could they ever consider sharing the same currency with the others, when so much of their business involves trading currencies and globalization. No, this dirty job was purposefully given to Germany.
There are certain unspoken truths that cut to the very core of many global financial matters that even blinkered economists fail to take into account.
You know, my father was a Mason. It is not against the Greek Orthodox church to be one, although certain religious Greeks still believe it is entering into a pact with the Devil. Anyway, I only bring that up, because for some odd reason, he always was able to see the big picture, the forest from the trees so to speak. Perhaps it was his initial indoctrination into the Society. Probably not, I just think that as a sound business person, who rose from humble beginnings, he developed a sound global perspective, and his business dealings abroad didn't hurt either.
The Euro is here to stay. The periphery nations will remain in as well, and although it will take time, poor people are indeed patient. To survive for so long as a people, they had to developed thick skin.
My toughness comes form the Greeks. My frugality comes from the peasant Greeks, perhaps my fatalistic outlook on life as well.
Happiness is never an issue. Hell, we were born to suffer. What was it that Mill wrote? "The ability to do without happiness makes us better able to attain happiness." It is our conscious efforts that raise us above life's chances by making us feel that fate does not have the power to subdue us.
I'm paraphrasing from memory of course, but that in a nutshell is the Southern European's mind set. There are no other choices but the Euro, so grin and bare it, while all the while, pushing for an equal standard of living, which will take time.
The smart ones are dug in, those who spent like Americans should worry though. You just need to be in a strong cash position to survive the wait.
Many Greeks who survived the war years did not make the mistake of overspending. It is similar for those who survived the Depression here in the United States.
Yep, not a good time to live and work, or have lived and worked in Greece. Retroactive pension reductions no less. If that ever happened in America or Germany, we would all be out on the Streets with knives in hand. Don't care what the local government can afford. It was transfer union time. What? are you trying to undermine an entire society in an effort to balance Greece's books. Sheer folly. They worked for that money. Private pensions is a different story. I'm talking about America now. Unless of course you worked Construction. Now that's one strong union!
"After all your Sarkozy and Hollande commited treason against the French repeatedly?"
I'm afraid that you're right on that. It sems that the French still have some "brioche" to eat. It will be explosive when they will have to eat dandelions roots
"a "little German" who rose to her level of incompetence (Murphy's law) about 2 years ago".
The 'Peter Principle', not 'Murphy's Law'.
But please don't take my word for it.
hey, where is the vid girl gone?
Running for political office I suspect, either that or we have ourselves another actress/budding television personality. Those sorts don't do introspection, but they are missing out, because a life unexamined, is certainly not worth living. Either way, what does it matters what she was saying? She sure did look good while she was saying it...laughs
Brother zorbas,
You and I are perhaps the only ones here always hitting the target and this without writing volumes. True philosophers moulded by life itself examining ourselves perpetually, laughing like Homer's heroes at our tragedies and certainly chase every skirt that shows up and is not like The Brain or Urekuhe.
Both experts in the study of the human character Brother, a shared life long pursuit. So few women comedians. Why? Comedy is attractive. Insecurity perhaps, too much invested in how we respond to them, and yet, women tend to gravitate towards self effacing men, like bees to honey. I of course have taken a life long oath of idiocy! Right ladies...laughs
As a french people, I am utterly disgusted by the pressure put on the shoulders of citizens from all around our country who work hard, and see the reward of all this work slipping out of their hands to end in some pig's hands in an account located not in France of course, but in Switzerland, Belgium, Bahamas islands or Belize. I am utterly by this so-called which rules our country, which is of course, unlike TE propaganda says, completely converted to capitalism since Mitterand's change of heart in 1983. The banking lobbies are so powerful in our country that they just have to protest weakly to get what they need ( an exemple with the "Pigeons"'s movement, just google that). The 75% tax, which concerns 0,1% of the population, is nothing but a joke designed for the leftists to actually believe that this pathetic excuse for a president is a socialist. Even his catchphrase for this year's elections was an absurd joke "Le changement, c'est maintenant!". No, change is not for now, and will never be if the French people remains docile, and keeps believing those absurd speeches. European integration will get us nowhere, and the single currency has doomed us to become Germany's slaves on all economic issues. Whatever we will say, if we still accept this market diktat, Merkel and whatever guy will succeed to her will ask us what we will have to do. But the string have not been crafted by German hands, that would be too simple. The whole corrupt financial system is at the roots of this crisis, and we keep thinking we have to help them. In fact, we beg them to help us, as it always has been. When TE says "You can't defy economics for long", it's implicitly assuming that indeed all of these banks, these companies actually aim at the destruction of nations, and it angers me to such a point I would like to burst and yell that our country is not for sale, and that the french nation must rise against that threat which aims to the destruction of our identity. And through their trojan horse named "European integration", they are actually using us as test subjects for their despisable goals.
Not a long way before, our nation struggled against European integration, and he succeeded in delaying it. But the next presidents have all sold their souls to ultraliberalism and antinationalism and here are the results. The people of France said NO to an European constitution in 2005, and then Sarkozy decided to bypass the Nation's will by just making it pass by asking the Parliament to ratify the hideous Treaty of Lisbonne.
When you push a people to its limits, just expect that it will counterattack just as violently as you had beat it. See what happens in Greece. They are being humiliated, tortured and trampled upon and they are beginning to think about other issues than sick liberalism. The birthplace of western civilization, western philosophy and democracy is not going to give in and it will resist, just as the people in Italy, Spain and Portugal.
Today, our opponents already cry out: France will fall! Yet France can give but one answer: France will survive and hence France will win!
Un Français qui a foi en son pays
the EU integration is a old "nazis" dream
"The Nazis are convinced that they must finally conquer because they have freed themselves from the chains of morality and humanity. Thus they argue: "If we conquer, this war will be the last one, and we will establish our hegemony forever. For when we are victorious we will exterminate our foes, so that a later war of revenge or a rebellion of the subdued will be impossible. But if the British and the Americans conquer, they will grant us a passable peace. As they feel themselves bound by moral law, divine commandments, and other nonsense, they will impose on us a new Versailles, maybe something better or something worse, at any rate not extermination, but a treaty which will enable us to renew the fighting after some lapse of time. Thus we will fight again and again, until one day we will have reached our goal, the radical extermination of our foes."
Democracy is dangerous stuff my friend. The banks cannot allow it. In America, it doesn't matter so much, becasue we were bought with easy money consumption privileges. Now Greece is a different story altogether. Germany has been put in charge. Germans feel they have worked for their privileges and there is no desire to share them with the others. Samaras and the rest of the politicians are bought. So, the Greek people have one of their own to tell them it will all get better one day if they just follow the plan. It's funny how they keep talking about our elites though. Without them, none of this works. It's a political Junta. Perhaps this time the military will save us. The villain has changed costume. Bankers are very devious in that way. Back in the day here in America, we rooted for the villain. Everyone despised bankers. It appears that they bought the media and with that our thought process as well, but Americans and the rest got consumption. Greeks got it for five years, and then the overly cautious Germans pulled the plug on the European integration project. The markets scared them. Protection was written into the contracts form their inception. No mistakes made. Germany insisted upon an exit strategy. Now she will pretend to want further integration, while all the while siting reasons why we cannot proceed too quickly.
May be that it was an old Nazi-dream.
They had a lot of weird dreams.
But today Germany expressively does not want to conquer any foreign country because we have enough to do in our own country.
And therefore everybody is more as grateful that they took the Alsations and Lorraines.
The French could have kept also better the Sarre-Region.
And quite opposite to the hateful and hostile French neighbours, Germans actually have an excellent relationship with Poland which is getting for Germany much more important as France.
France is no longer attractive for Germans and Germany and so there quite little interest here in Germany what is going on in France.
The important markets of the future are in Poland, Russia and China wile France is becoming more and more a lost case.
The rating agencies will give their votes at the right moment.
Obviously France is actually on a downhill trend.
Yet France can give but one answer: France will survive and hence France will win!
How right you are.
I watched a few days on TV 1 a quite similar discussion of your "experts" who said the very same as you say.
You are right that France is still the most important economic and military super-power on this planet and you are right that France is superior to the rest of the world.
And you are really right like your "experts" at home in your country that Germany never can ever compete with France ( and they do not even want to compete:)
But: The rating-agencies see things rather different:)
And: the markets will tell you and your country if you are the unique economic and military super-power, superior to all other nations and ethnics, as you have been regarding yourself since ever and for ever.
Time will show and at the moment it looks like as if you are a little bit on a downhill trend :)
So Vive la France - Vive la Gloire Francaise!
So please go for it the way is free:)
hey you got a comrad down there, barabulatina, say hello to a puss rioter !
Hey sweet heart, you are loosing it.
I mean, your mind into History.
Not sure this is fair.
And do not call naive ...
I was refering to your bold assertion "the EU integration is a old "nazis" dream".
I don't see any interest in using humilating historical references in order to solve European future issues.
Yes Marie, the nazis were evil. That's not news to us.
See how you can easily sink a cliché into people's mind, ready to follow anyone that speaks loud : is vs. was.
Possibly was, long time ago.
Not the slighest link with today's mess, nore concern : is France weakening / threatning the EZ?
Who cares what was said by Daily Mail (?!?) in 2009 about some industrials 70 years ago? I don't and you should not even take the time to spread this kind of weirdo article. Just not in the scope.
too naive
"too naive"
LoL! You are so naive. You don't even believe in the most fundamental facts. Like the nazis are behind the EU mess. Or that Germans are baby eaters. Read more Daily Mail.
you haven't read the American Intelligence report !
for a reminderfrom a german NET acquaintance:
"a very similar thought has crossed my mind in the last 2 years: When has Germany ever been in a more favorable strategic position in Europe since 1871?
A) Germany today is united and rich on the one hand as described in the article
B) It is also relying on the "right" industries on the other hand, which like automotive and precise machinery production can be turned into war industry shortly on a large scale
and C) in strict contrast to the wars so far former (colonial) powers Britain and France have changed their industries into banking, dis-industrialized and crippled their former military capacities.
Still I don't think it would be the best time to antagonize and go to war within a few years. As long as we can employ the EU and there is a chance that we can send troops into states suffering from public disorder under the Treaty of Lisbon I say we should go along that route. That would reduce resistance and keep other nations from forging a counter-alliance. And we might even get the more prosperous euro-members on our side.
Only when that fails i say it would make sense to reforge the sword"
Indeed the Bundestag passed some laws lately that authorise the Bundeswehr to fight in urban unrests, and this precisely what will happen if Merkel manages her European federation, the German soldiers would be allowed to fight unrests in any EZ country !
keep on dreaming of your country of bisounours, we know that the Germans feel as much strong, as they did in pre WW1 years (since the 1880 years), like they did in pre WW2 years too... Instead of losing a war, the Nazis won peace (the other face of the same coin), and the subjugation of the EU countries through a financial crisis.
Yes, Nazis didn't suddenly vaporize on the 9th of May 1945. Neither did their
influence for many many years. That's no secret, Marie.
"keep on dreaming of your country of bisounours"
I never said that. Germans are responsible for current crisis. But so are others.
"we know that the Germans feel as much strong, as they did in pre WW1 years"
No, "we" certainly don't know that. In 1914 there was aggressive militaristic nationalism in Germany. This is not the case today. There is a reason why military parades like those on Bastille day are completely unthinkable in Germany.
Sorry, Marie, Germans still have no intention whatsoever to eat your babies. I do not know the reason for your relentless hate and belief in conspiracy theories.
it's not conspiracy theories, it's politics. Isn't it funny that that's only Germans who see hate, can't they bear any critics? Then you haven't read the American and the Brits papers on France since a decade, it would then be labelled as racism by you if these medias had treated the Germans like they treated the French.
14th of July military parades in France became a routine since 1880
In 1880, the left is in power for three years and the very conservative MacMahon left the Elysée. That year, the Republic makes its National Day on July 14, referring to the Feast of the Federation 1790. The president Jules Grevy, a secular republican, attends a military parade at the Longchamp racecourse. New flags are given to all the regiments of the French army. It is to celebrate patriotic values, ten years after the crushing defeat of 1870 and to show that France has an army again."
hey, the Military parade was ment to impress the Germanz !
"Isn't it funny that that's only Germans who see hate, can't they bear any critics?"
There's a difference between hate and criticism. I repeatedly said that I do not approve of the German Government's policy either.
"if these medias had treated the Germans like they treated the French."
So you claim to face hate in those papers? Then (contrary to your claim) the Germans are not the only ones who see hate, am I right?
"14th of July military parades in France became a routine since 1880 ... "
I didn't say anything negative about this patriotism.
When you are done with Shakespeare and your lovely press, why don't you have a look at Dostoïevski, you Идиот !
Waaoooo !!
Now the American intelligence, don't you have any?
If you do, then don't forget you pills sweet heart.
And in this beautiful scenario of yours, who is Jean Moulin ?
Of course, we now know you must be him.
Errr... sure!?
Spoken like a true Frenchman. When the going gets tough either bail or blame it on someone else.
"So you claim to face hate in those papers? Then (contrary to your claim) the Germans are not the only ones who see hate, am I right?"
but we didn't labelled that as "hate", rather as "french bashing", a old habit by the Anglo-Saxon plebe !
"So you claim to face hate in those papers? Then (contrary to your claim) the Germans are not the only ones who see hate, am I right?"
but we didn't labelled that as "hate", rather as "french bashing", a old habit by the Anglo-Saxon plebe !
"Пропустить дураком в глазах дурак гурман восторга. "
Sweatheart, you did not mind me calling you this way.
You are now playing with my feelings, "self-esteem".
But what do the English say again?
Something like "flatering will lead you nowhere".
I am surprised the TE did not remove your comment in russian though... biased 100%, totalitarian, but somehow it helps us discuss tough and serious issues.
If anyone cared having the original text :
"Passer pour un idiot aux yeux d'un imbécile est une volupté de fin gourmet." Courteline, 1917
Why not read or read Shakespeare twice? Our world seems stagnant. The world is in the improbable; it is all about appearance and not being. Our world is in a moment of inertia, it remains stagnant, and you are scared by the crisis. That's it! The word has just been uttered and you need to know what the crisis is all about. Reading Shakespeare twice allows you to answer the famous declamation, 'Something is rotten in the kingdom of Denmark (…)'
Hamlet has buried you in your own share of imprisonment and if you realise that you don't know anything about what will occur afterwards, is this a reason for you to give everything up? Something is really rotten, the fear of running out of money, the fear of being jobless and this rottenness is coiled in the fear of any kind of lack, lack of money, lack of food whilst the world is weighed down by food galore and other consuming goods and all of that does not prevent poverty from increasing whilst at the same time poverty scares us all. All of that is linked to the fear of being labelled as losers.
Are we going to laisser-faire because you may be part of the haves and the haves do not want to be taken the piss out of them? Or even because it is going so-so for us, and that it is difficult enough for us to rack our brains on other people's issues. Then all of that would be some justification for not changing anything. I would say that Europeans do not believe in autonomy any more, since they think they have been ripped off. We are only able to accept shares between the mighty-haves as little lambs because everybody is focused on their daily routine. And yet what about us as human beings? Have we ever thought of us? What would we like to see in our world instead of that entire marketing buzz in TE? Is something really rotten? Yes indeed, because all that matters is the image reflecting of oneself. To be or not to be, that is the question again, or again not to be. It is like a kind of curse because one cannot be both – be and not be- and be or not be-. This term /or/ is a real problem because it involves that one be part of there or elsewhere, or again out of nowhere. Thus borders have been assigned to each individual. When I state this or that, people can hear that I am not this or that. That has become unstoppable and unbearable, just as the buzz around the issue of TE. This is an open door to any kind of hatred, any kind of war between us. Look around you. Then could we be as foolish as not dare think one could be and not be at the same time?
A happy frog in Paris!
At loooonng, toooo long last.
Thank you, from the deep of my personal feelings.
Some one on the side of Earth likely to make a rich, very rich analysis, behavioral analysis.
The problem is : are they going to read it all?
"People-of-numbers", do you get the point?
I guess you will have a comment from Felipe in Rio.
But very few "money makers" care about thinking, or being just wise. This is causing trouble, don't you think?
You are right, still very right.
Sure you got 5 at recommendations.
But no one to answer you ...
Lonely cowboy.
Keep thinking, it's the first step to resist in chaotic situations.
"Germany knew what she wanted with the euro
Kohl thought, in the contrary it helped him to diminish the difference between eastern Germany workers's wages and western Germany workers's wages."
The ultimate irony being that Ossies (former DDR) still hate Wessies (BRD) and are voting en mass not for CDU (let alone FDP) but for the neo-Nazi NPD!
//The ultimate irony being that Ossies (former DDR) still hate Wessies (BRD) and are voting en mass not for CDU (let alone FDP) but for the neo-Nazi NPD!//
Just wrong.
At the moment the NPD only has seats in two parliaments, Saxon & Mecklenburg and are in each the weakest party of all. Considering that 1970 they were in 7 parliaments in WEST Germany...
But let's look at the facts and your claim that the wouldn't vote for CDU. But what did the 6 former states acutally do?
In 3 the CDU has won every single election: Saxon, Saxon-Anhalt, Thuringia.
In 2 states both the SPD and CDU have won elections in the past.
Berlin: CDU - 1990, 1995, 1999 ; SPD - 2001, 2006, 20011 (Wowereit factor)
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern: CDU - 1990, 1994 ; SPD - 1998, 2002, 1006, 2011
Only in the last state, Brandenburg, the SPD has so far won every single election.
The one party that IS stronger in former East Germany than in the West, is "Die Linke". Because, you know, "Die Linke" is actually very socialist, while the NPD is on the right...
You don't know what you are talking about. Here a link to the latest
Landtagswahl in Saxony:
"Germany knew what she wanted with the euro"
Yes, but what she knew was that she didn't want to be put in the same basket with these losers and get screwed by the gambling casino Markets. Now she must stall further integration while all the while promising it. Never give up an advantage, earned or otherwise. Ask a Greek who made. I took no prisoners. Afterwards, with old age and my failing health came compassion. Steak for dinner! Now, where did I leave my teeth...laughs
Twilight of the Twinkies? Say it isn't so! Not to worry. With a shelf life of 1,000 years, I'll just have to buy a $hit load and fill the garage is all.
Hon, add Twinkies to the shopping list. Wait till I tell her how many...laughs
Interesting :
1°) First, TE starts bashing France
13°) this global conversation ends up with comments about "Landtagswahl in Saxony".
Not rigourous, out of scope.
"The one party that IS stronger in former East Germany than in the West, is "Die Linke". Because, you know, "Die Linke" is actually very socialist, while the NPD is on the right..."
A common mistake. NPD is a neo-NAZI party, thus, by definition,
National SOCIALIST one.
Btw. Hitler's statist polices were also Socialist in nature, thus enthusiastic suport for them and for his NSDAP among the lowly German masses.
"You don't know what you are talking about."
Perhaps. But why don't you wait till next November when this huge support for Merkel and her CDU/FDP coalition in former DDR is allegedly going to materialize?
thank you,
Dear Pumper,
Pumpernickel, this blog is really not worth it to me. Italy has 38 million Eurofederalists with whom I can have a perfectly good conversation. I don't need further dialogue with British and American xenophobic conservatives; had my fill of that to last me a lifetime. You still seem to need such dialogue, for whatever reason. But this blog, and the characters who dominate it, are not my "scene" so to speak.
Not my age-demographic, not my politics, not my worldview, not my metaphysics. Too much talk of demons, evil, and bad national characters; no appreciation for data or facts; lots of polemic and hot air; very little reason and genuine argument; too much history and living in the past; most participants locked in permanent rear-view vision; no hope, and no vision for the future.
It was fun and exotic for a while: like a journey back in time, to Salem Massachusettes circa 1650, when crazy people burned witches. But the initial thrill of a virtual vacation on the blog-from-hell is now over. And now the blog is just hell.
So I am afraid you are going to be on your own again. If you need the crank of Charlemagne's blog, more power to you. But just remember, it really does not matter one bit whether the Europhobes completely take over Charlemagne, because as you know, everyone on the continent applies a strong "truth discount" to everything that The Economist writes in any case. And especially everything posted on its blogs.
I'll address something to you in another sub-blog, somewhere quiet and "away from the action" (like this sub-blog), in a few days' time. Will track your recent posting history, to see where I can find you.
I also wrote something in response to Junior's last comment addressed to me, that I will also post before I leave. It's already written, it's finished, so I might as well post it.
Let Maher know that I am no longer blogging on Charlemagne, because he and his kind are. Not because I've given up on Eurofederalism. Exactly the opposite. Maher should consider me a committed Eurofederalist who decided that it really is time to stop dialoguing with the Anglosphere. After all, the British are going to secede from the EU in any case; I want them to secede; I definitely don't want to stop them; so what more is there left to discuss?
To be more precise, of course, it's time to stop talking with the wretchedly old, Euro-cranky, nationalistic-jingoistic, Germanophobic, Europhobic, rabidly right-wing, demon-haunted end of the Anglosphere. But I'm perfectly happy if those who blog here need to imagine me hating Anglo-America as a whole, just because I despise their end of it in particular. They are not the Anglosphere, only the lunatic-frindge of it. But if they need this last bit of self-aggrandizement, I'll give it to them.
I will be searching for a better EU-issues blog elsewhere. At least I now know where to look, via leads provided by PressEurop. So will also get in touch once I find an EU-issues blog that is, shall we say, a bit more "enlightening", and worth my time.
I value and appreciate your friendship and your mentoring, Pumpernickel, and will miss exchanging views with you. With any luck, that friendship should continue.
All best wishes,
I miss your contributions.
How do you figure 38 million? (Although, that number sounds about right to me).
I've been thinking things through a bit more, and until I find a better EU-issues blog, I really would like to continue staying in touch with you, specifically. But again, I have no use for further conversation with the vast majority of those who post on Charlemagne, i.e. the Europhobes and Eurocranks who seem to dominate the blog. For me personally, further correspondence with them would be a waste of time.
At first, back in February, dialogue with the Europhobes was interesting enough, because I had never heard a "real live Europhobe" speak before (or express their opinions on a blog, as it were). As you know, in Italy the whole political spectrum is more Leftist, pro-Europe, and Eurofederalist; and Italian academia even more so. So there was an initial novelty-value or "thrill factor" involved in talking with a real live American-Republican nationalistic jingoist, or a real live UKIP and/or BNP British jingoist. In the ordinary run of our lives, our professions, friendships, and locations of residence tend to separate us from those who have radically opposed points of view. Only via Internet blogs like Charlemagne is one likely to encounter and exchange views with the "extreme Other".
Now occasionally the Europhobes did provide novel perspectives, or links to articles and websites that I was not aware of. And, needless to say, the whole process of blogging on Charlemagne has dramatically increased my awareness of European issues. Argument is a great research-motivator, and the "Europhobe" spoof was fun to write.
But the thrill factor has long since passed, and the research would proceed more swiftly if I were NOT blogging here. And the shear ugliness and wretchedness of some of the Europhobes who post here now so dominates the experience for me, that I have no use for further exchange with them.
So instead, in the near future, until I find somewhere better to hang out, I will post things that I find on the web that might be of interest to you, specifically. Or I will post recent thoughts or ideas which might also prove of interest to you. No doubt as is their tendency, the Europhobes will try to draw me out, attacking whatever I post. But I figure that if I systematically ignore them, and make it a policy to respond only to your posts, Pumpernickel, plus the posts of a handful of others (e.g. Zorbas, Milovan, Pedro, Forlana), and not a single Europhobe post, then eventually they will just give up. They will know that any kind of interaction or exchange with me is over. Hopefully they will read this, and realize that the time for further dialogue really is over, at least for me.
Sure, it's an incredibly "ungenerous" way to blog. But they don't deserve more. And even more to the point, they don't want more: they don't want the likes of me on "their" blog in any case, so they should not expect more.
Their militant hostility to the presence of any kind of Eurofederalist on the blog is really quite incredible, if you think about it. Because just going by the YouGov March 2012 poll alone, there are at least 100 million committed Eurofederalists on the continent: 1/3 of Germany, 38 % of France, 63 % of Italy, and probably as many Eurofederalists in Spain, Portugal, and other peripheral countries, as there are in Italy. The YouGov March 2012 survey of attitudes seems to concentrate mostly on northern Europe + France and Italy, so I will have to search to find another poll that provides data on Eurofederalism in the South. But the total figure for Eurofederalists in the EU-27 is at least 100 million, and probably more like 170 million, i.e. 35 % of 500 million (taking something close to France's percentage of Eurofederalists as the median, and erring a bit on the cautious side).
That's a lot of Eurofederalists. And yet the Eurofederalist "voice" is not heard anywhere on Charlemagne, aside from my own brief spells spent posting here, and the brief spells of a few others (e.g. Milovan "Joe Solaris", when he was more active). And even such lone Eurofederalist voices the Anglo-Europhobes still want to suppress. Pretty incredible, if you think about it, because at a bare minimum, you might imagine that Europhobes would want to gain some understanding of "the other side", and what they are up against. After all, that's the main reason why I began blogging here: to see what their side was like. And if they don't make it a point to engage, in a constructive way, the occasional Eurofederalists who shows up on Charlemagne, then where else are they going to engage Eurofederalists?
For reasons that will become clear in my posts to Junior, on my own view it is all but inevitable that the EU is about to become much more massively Eurofederalist. So you would think that the Europhobes on Charlemagne would be at least a little bit curious as to where Eurofederalists are "coming from", so to speak. But they are not: they only want to hear their own point of view, repeated over and over again, in soundbites. And they will do everything possible to suppress dissenting voices.
Again, I am happy to let them suppress, because I figure The Economist does not have much genuine "agency" on the continent in any case. So it does not really matter if Charlemagne is taken over by Europhobes, who only want to chant "Down with Europe! Down with Europe!" After all, they have to chant somewhere. And I do want Britain to secede, so perhaps the louder their chanting on Charlemagne, the better.
Now those 170 million Eurofederalists quite obviously do blog somewhere. So the challenge will be to find out where they blog. There are Italian Eurofederalist websites, of course, but what I am looking for is a blog where continentals discuss EU-issues in a sophisticated and pan-European sort of way, from a specifically Eurofederalist perspective, in English…….
All best wishes,
Dear Milovan,
So incredibly good to hear from you! I miss your posts, too!
Where have you been?
For the last month or so I've been posting in the threads that seem to serve as "substitute café", and finding myself increasingly bored with Europhobic chants and grunts. Did you read any of my posts in those threads? You can always just click on my name, to get my posting history. Back in May I wrote a long piece of satire, a "spoof" as it were, called "Europhobe", which I also posted in multiple installments. The Economist let the spoof stick, so again, just scroll through my posting history to find it. And if you do get a chance to read it (it's very long), please let me know what you think.
Above I was reasoning about the size of Eurofederalism on the continent on the basis of a YouGov survey of European attitudes conducted in March, 2012 – see http://research.yougov.co.uk/news/2012/03/13/cross-country-attitudes-tow... , http://cdn.yougov.com/cumulus_uploads/document/4x9s21hyb3/Cross-country%... , http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/0e9q69eu6v... , and http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/6xufjlailj... . Note that although the summary states that almost 40 % of the French are in favor of a United States of Europe, the actual figure is 38 %. So when quoting, probably best to use the latter figure.
But as just stated above to Pumpernickel, I need to find an equivalent survey that focuses more on the South, or peripheral countries, including Portugal, Spain, Ireland, and Greece, as well as the former east-bloc group.
Do you know of any other surveys conducted, that have tried to determine the overall level of pro-Eurofederalist sentiment on the continent? Such surveys would be of tremendous value to the Eurofederalist camp, because needless to say, Anglo-Europhobes like to paint us as crazy lone voices. Whereas, in fact, there are at least 100 million Eurofederalists in the EU, and the actual figure is probably closer to 200 million.
Also: do you know where Eurofederalists blog? Do you have any idea what the best Eurofederalist blog-site would be? I will begin researching this question over the following weeks, but your input would be very much appreciated. The best "master portal" for EU-weblogs in general is at http://www.bloggingportal.eu/reader , and presseurop's brief mini-guide to EU-related blogs is at http://www.presseurop.eu/en/blog . So if you find anything promising, please let me know!
Finally, why have you become much less active on Charlemagne? Maher interpreted your inactivity as an admission of defeat: as signaling abandonment of your pro-EU or Eurofederalist views. Is this in fact true? Or, like me, have you simply become sick and tired of talking with nutty, ultra-right-wing Europhobes who believe in demons?
All best wishes,
Dear Milovan,
Crammerboy sure went through a lot of trouble collating your posting history! In what follows, I will just assume that Crammerboy's collation sums up your recent views, unless you state otherwise.
As you know, I completely agree with you, and always have. Already back in February I was castigating Merkel's lack of imagination, vision, and leadership. As a little ossie, who never really grew up enjoying – let's just say – the full range of benefits of European civilization, Merkel has simply failed to understand what is at stake. Sure, her Dad was a pastor from the West, and enjoyed certain privileges; but Merkel herself still grew up in the East.
And so too, needless to say, there are lots of redneck Germans who voted for Merkel in the first place (Pumper exempted of course, at least in my book: Opera-lover of wide culture and all….:). But then there are lots of rednecks in every country.
The Federal Republic's list of great statesmen is long:
1. Konrad Adenauer, a lawyer and committed Catholic (sorry, Joe, but as a Catholic myself, I could not resist that one….), persecuted and imprisoned by the Nazis, was almost sent East to a concentration camp; albeit Adenauer's record of early accommodation with the Nazis as Mayor of Cologne is not pretty.
2. Willy Brandt was a Journalist in Spain during the civil war, fled to Norway to escape Nazi persecution, and at one point had his German citizenship revoked.
3. Helmut Schmitt was educated in economics and political science.
4. Helmut Kohl was a visionary with a Ph.D in History.
5. Gerhard Schröder, like Adenauer, was a lawyer.
6. And then….. and then….. an ossie Chemist?
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konrad_Adenauer , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willy_Brandt , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmut_Schmidt , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmut_Kohl , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Schröder , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angela_Merkel , and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chancellor_of_Germany_(Federal_Republic_of_Germany) .
OK, let's look at that list again. Lawyer, Journalist, Econ/Poli-Sci, Ph.D in History, Lawyer…. and….. yep..... there it is...... ossie Chemist. Sure, "quantum Chemistry" or "physical chemistry", but chemistry all the same.
So an ossie Chemist is supposed to possess the wide humanistic education, skills, and imagination necessary to solve the Eurozone crisis? At least Thatcher had the good sense to also qualify as a lawyer, before she went much further with her career in politics, after she too first studied (oddly enough) chemistry at Oxford – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_thatcher .
For better or worse, Joe, there just is such a thing as "contingency" in history. Statesmen or "statespersons" – or lack thereof – matter.
Sure, I know perfectly well that wrong-headed German ordo-liberal economic thinking is making life hell for everyone else in Europe. But Merkel and the CDU specifically also do, very much, deserve most of the blame for this, and not Germany writ large. As you know, the CDU is not Germany, just as the Republicans are not the United States, or Berlusconi's PdL is not Italy.
I've been praying that Merkel will not get another term, asking God in a rather unholy way for a bit of divine intervention, even before the election. After all, lots of medieval monks would pray to God for delivery from tyrants, and would give thanks and praise if a tyrant was suddenly struck and killed by lightning, or fell off his horse, or just happened to die of food poisoning….
All best wishes,
Note: In all of the above I did imagine myself responding directly to you Joe, albeit in truth I am responding to Joe as "channeled" by Crammerboy.
Vaya con dios! The morph has left the building!
No wait he's still here.
No wait he's not gone yet
There is, of course, also another way of looking at the problem of Eurocrisis dithering. The alternative suggestion that follows below should, I hope, surprise you.
Think of it as a hypothesis. Of course I deliberately wrote it to provoke, with a view to getting some blood boiling. From discussions you and I have had in the past, I am fairly certain that you are under 45 years old. So you should find the hypothesis below at least amusing, and perhaps illuminating. But most others who read what follows will certainly fall into its "target zone".
So it's bound to piss off just about everyone who blogs here….:)
Americans will describe the generation born from 1905 to 1925 as the "Greatest Generation", because it was this generation who suffered through the Great Depression, either as children or young adults; who went on to win WW2; who created America's progressive "great society" in the 1960's, and who passed civil rights legislation; and who were responsible for using American military might to create and maintain the world's post-war order. John F. Kennedy, for instance, is a member of this generation, born in 1917 – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greatest_Generation .
Arguably, the roughly equivalent generation on the continent rebuilt Europe, the common market, and the EU. This latter possibility, as far as I know, has not been sufficiently explored. But one probably can and should talk of a European "Greatest Generation" as well, contemporary with America's.
Who is in charge now?
Well, the baby-boomers. And gosh, they sure suck.
American sociologists will use the term "baby boom" to describe those born between 1945 and 1964 (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_boom , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post–World_War_II_baby_boom , and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_boomer ). Those born after 1964, such as myself, are considered "baby bust".
The baby-boom was a fairly broad, international phenomenon, occurring not just in the United States, but also in most countries in Europe, albeit in Europe the onset and end of most booms were a bit "delayed", and shifted forward a few years. For instance, Germany's baby boom took place from 1955 to 1967. But France's baby boom began like America's in 1946, and lasted much longer, until 1974.
The baby boom generation has been analyzed to death. Even so, one singular fact has always stood out: they are even better described as the "Me" generation – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me_generation . They are an incredibly narcissistic, self-referential age-demographic. They are also intensely hypocritical, weak-willed, and quick to abandon any genuine political idealism when the going gets tough. They pretended to utopianism back in the 1960's, but sold out awfully quick, becoming stock-brokers in the 1980's, and then presiding over the "Great Divergence", the most massively politically regressive 4 decades in U.S. history - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Divergence_(inequality) , http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/27/books/review/the-great-divergence-by-t... , and http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/the_book_club/features/2012/tim_noah_... . Ditto in Europe.
As Oliviero Toscani, of Benneton Ad fame once confided to me, "Hey, look, we were all Maoists back then". Toscani is now rich, and sent his kids to expensive private schools and universities in Switzerland and the United States. But Toscani still produced those Bennetton Ads "as if" he actually cares about this, that, or the other cause; "as if" he is still progressive in outlook. I could name a dozen more examples of baby-boomer pseudo-Leftism that amounts to little more than mere self-marketing gimmick – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliviero_Toscani .
With the boomers in charge, Europe is screwed.
So Joe, if you really want to blame any particular social group, become a bit more sophisticated in your sociological analysis, and ask yourself, Who actually built the EU to begin with? What generation? And then ask yourself, who is now in charge, and screwing up royally?
Merkel places right at the beginning of the German baby-boom, born in 1954. So does it actually make sense to expect more enlightened EU policy from a German member of the "me generation"?
In country after country, Europe is becoming an entrenched gerontocracy of baby-boomers (or what the French call '69-ers), who really don't give a damn about youth unemployment, for instance. When they were 18, back in the 1960's and 1970's, jobs were plentiful, and unemployment comparatively low. They had the Great Generation to thank for that. But it does not seem to occur to them that – now that they are in charge – they have a duty and obligation to create socio-economic conditions equivalent to those they once enjoyed as young people.
It's just a hypothesis, but it might explain a great deal of what's actually going on now – or, more precisely, what is not going on. The inaction, the dithering, the stasis, the seeming paralysis. The slow-motion destruction.
The lack of genuine leadership is more than merely political, it is also intellectual. As the eminent German sociologist Ulrich Beck recently asked (Beck is 67, and a member of a slightly older, pre-boom generation):
"Where are the European intellectuals clamoring to offer an enthusiastic defense of the unfinished project of the European Union and its historical achievements in its hour of need? Where are the intellectuals arguing against the EU critics' national misunderstanding? This cadre has no members." See http://www.social-europe.eu/2011/02/cooperate-or-fail-the-way-out-of-the... .
Of course, the cadre does have members, just not baby-boom members. Beck himself is a cadre member, as are even older intellectual giants such as Jurgen Habermas. And many of those born post-boom, like myself, want to join the cadre.
But baby-boom intellectuals aged circa 45 to 65? The silence is deafening. They'd rather gaze at their navels, arguing relativistically about post-modernist, post-colonial, post-logos, post-thinking clap-trap instead.
So Joe, it's entirely possible that the crisis will not get resolved, just as long as those cursed boomers run the show. You have to remember that, in their very essence, the "me-generation" only has negative energy: they have not and will not amount to anything more than a "critical", or "protest", or "destructive" sort of generation. They are very clear about the things that they are against, for instance, genuine self-sacrifice; or things that they don't like, for instance, legitimate source of authority, like Reason. But they are not very good at actually constructing anything.
All best wishes,
PS – I hope it goes without saying that all of the above was a bit exaggerated for effect. Hyperbole sometimes has value, and this perhaps one of those times.
The sociology of the mishandling of the Eurocrisis is a fascinating topic, worth a few good books in its own right. If anyone were to write such a book, and they missed the whole "baby-boomer angle" of the fiasco, they just would be missing a big piece of the puzzle.
Apparently still in the building. By popular acclaim back for an encore. You remind me of Charles Taylor. He kept saying he was leaving but had a hard time doing it.
Ok bye...see you...take care.... OK, so bye...bye...
Hello Theomorph!
I will attempt to respond to your copious postings in reverse order. I have been working 80-90 hours a week recently. Having no time to keep after the various companies that owe me money, I have been living on fumes... Last week I finally got paid for a large translation that permitted me to pay three months of the mortgage and the annual insurance fee - thus bringing me back into current status and narrowly avoiding worse trouble with the bank. This week, the institute I do most of my work for (of late) has just paid me for the work I did in February and March. Now if they would pay me for April and May I might be able to pay off some debts and even take off for a weekend - say to the Czech Republic for some cheap beer...
(I hope the above explains why I have not been posting more here. Need I add that I expect payment for this month's consulting, translations, etc. to arrive around June of next year?)
With regard to your two posts above:
Aside from the fact that (no, you are slightly wrong: I am just over 45 years old - having been born on the cusp of the baby boom/bust) I agree with every word of yours above. I have a close friend who is Professor of Sociology and my own age - this is a frequent topic of our discussions.
I would add a local note from those discussions: We spent the better part of the 90's and half of the past decade waiting for relations between Italians and Slovenians to get better here. And for Italy to leave a certain fascistic nationalism behind it.
My theory has long been that our main problem in Trieste derives from the postwar baby boom: that is to say, the inevitable postwar baby boom that derives from a victorious war. And since the only victorious war Italy ever fought was World War I, our demographically lopsided, politically and culturally dominant boomers are those born in the 1920's. Change - I have long held (and occasionally expressed publicly) - will come when that generation passes on to a better existence.
Please note that at 76 years of age, Berlusconi is the "youngest" and spry-est of that generation. And almost none of the ladies of that generation really believe he could have participated in Bunga Bunga parties. Or that Giulio Andreotti "did all those things they accuse him of", for that matter...
Perhaps you are aware that Italy has five Life Senators, named so for their contributions to Italian culture, art, science, industry, politics, etc.? (Or by right of their service as President of the Republic...)
The current list:
Giulio Andreotti - born in 1919
Rita Levi-Montalcini - born in 1909
Emilio Colombo - born in 1920
Carlo Azeglio Ciampi - born in 1920
Mario Monti - the "youngster", born in 1943
And let's not forget our current President of the Republic, Giorgio Napolitano, whose term ends in August of next year, when he will automatically become Senator-for-Life: born in 1925.
BTW, Toscani is a jerk. A very bright, wealthy, artistic, successful jerk - but nonetheless...
I had a chance to interpret for - and later chat with - the designer Elio Fiorucci last year. A much more pleasant and likeable individual. At the end of his presentation (during a week devoted to Design in Friuli), btw, he expressed his vivid concern and condemnation for the wave of anti-German public opinion rolling over Italy - and recounted having to run - literally - from the bombs in Milan during the war. He begged the younger generation not to bring Europe back to those days.
Yes, baby boomer incompetence and selfishness is a major factor in the Euro-crisis.
In Italian the term is "sessantottino" ('68-er). About ten years ago I was complaining with a friend, born in '55, about the truly annoying parents of all the delicious young girls (generally born in the 70's) I had dated in the 90's. My biggest obstacle to a more long-lasting relationship was inevitably their mothers who refused to "let go" of their daughters. As he said to me, "The truth is we were always a selfish generation. We were selfish with our parents and now we are selfish with our children."
That generation in the peninsula is forever telling their children - and daughters especially - "Have fun with whomever you want, also at home, but don't ever get married and especially don't ever have children." And, don't ever leave home.
A tremendous drag on our economic dynamism. As we say, it all comes down to the "figa". Sexual mores have loosened so much that nobody is eager to leave home any more. Italian parents should go back to being more puritanical - so that the children will be driven to leave the nest and build their own home, family and business/career.
"The Federal Republic's list of great statesmen is long:"
Your post is much kinder and more patient in its response to my tirades than I probably deserve. ;-)
Your list does not include Johannes Rau. A great man.
I met a retired Helmut Schmidt as a university student several decades ago. His diminuitive physical presence is matched by his intellectual and political greatness. A positively Rooseveltian figure.
The Americans are quite addicted to tall Presidents - I doubt Obama would have won if he were not as tall and thin as he is (a frightening thought, eh?) and yet they forget their greatest president, their Caesar Augustus (as Gore Vidal used to love saying) was confined to a wheelchair.
But - let's not count out Austria. So respected abroad as a country that they were able to get a Secretary General of the UN elected, and a very mediocre one at that. (Italy had an Assistant Secretary General, Giandomenico Picco, under Perez de Cuellar).
@ Theomorph + Milovan/Joe:
Is there any change you two are identical (and haven't noticed yet - Forlana might know the proper term for such a condition)?
I'll tell you why I think that might be the case you if you ask politely.
@ Theomorph:
"Konrad Adenauer [...], persecuted and imprisoned by the Nazis, was almost sent East to a concentration camp; albeit Adenauer's record of early accommodation with the Nazis as Mayor of Cologne is not pretty."
Accommodation with the nazis?
The nazis relieved Adenauer of his office as Cologne mayor two month after Hitler took power, and froze his bank accounts.
Point well taken. By noting that some historians will claim this about Adenauer, I merely wanted to preemptively "disarm" the other side, if you know what I mean - a certain fake-Canadian someone, who you and I both love, and who really loves us Germanz...:)
For me personally, Adenauer is one of the great statesmen of 20th century Europe.
But of course, the overall pattern in the argument is what really counts here.
Germany had an exceptional run, one truly great statesman after another, including Joe's favorite, Schmidt. And then along comes a baby-boomer chemist, whose only real talent is remaining cryptic and homespun – see http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/20/angela-merkel-mystery-top , http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/debatten/europas-zukunft/angela-me... , and for a translation, see http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fw... . Good personality traits in a central banker, but in a Chancellor? A Chancellor who has to lead, during a time of Europe-wide crisis? A Chancellor who, as the Guardian suggests, has to "talk up the benefits of the single currency, of Germany's role in the euro narrative, including the fact that it bears responsibility for this flawed currency, rather than saying: 'we're the victims of it…..'"
[BTW, the FAZ subsection on "Die Debatte um Europas Zukunft" is terrific – see http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/debatten/europas-zukunft/ ].
To be honest, I simply do not understand what the German voter "sees" in Merkel. I usually do not have this problem with politicians elected to important offices, in the sense that no matter what their politics, I can "see" the appeal. I very much disliked Bush and his policies, but I could still "see" why so many Americans voted for him. Same with Bush Senior, and Reagan.
I could also "see" why so many Brits loved Maggie, even though again, I personally disliked her. Or I could see why the French voted for Sarkozy.
But honestly, I cannot see the appeal of Merkel for anyone, of any political stripe. Even Berlusconi makes more sense to me than Merkel does, in so far as I can "see" why a certain kind of Italian would vote for him.
Perhaps Pumpernickel could explain the mystique of the mysterious, man-eating spider woman?
All best wishes,
Point well taken. By noting that some historians will claim this about Adenauer, I merely wanted to preemptively "disarm" the other side, if you know what I mean - a certain fake-Canadian, who you and I both love, and who really loves us Germanz...:)
For me personally, Adenauer is one of the great statesmen of 20th century Europe.
barabulatina wrote: "If France wants to become a second Russia with all the locked economy and the only problems around, then the way is open."
I know Russia. The problem there is even worse. With people believing only the government/regime can solve their problems and so there's no point of a bottom-up social pressure movement.
[not that EU's unelected Commi-ssars encourage anything like that]
Is the only thing you care of counting, sorting in order compare?
You must be a very happy person then.
Is the only thing you care of counting, sorting in order compare?
You must be a very happy person then.
THat I am.
But, btw... If you compare real facts, such as economic status, levels of national debt and state defict, GDP per capita, standards of living - what else is there besides statistics, particularly if collated from multiple sources?
[Inquiring minds want to know]
Then, you must be very anguished, all statistics are said to be down:
- some Germans said Der Spiegel hovers 0% GDP increase,
- France is said to be "a bomb",
- Greece got beaten up, Italy ... slighlty roaring again - viva Italia !
- Spain (no comment)
- Portugal (cannot comment)
Fortunately TE's country is SUCH in a great shape : UK will save us again I am sure :).
Like guest-iimowmo said : read Shakspeare for a while.
It will help you make right decisions, for you, your country, for business parters of yours ...
If you cannot read a book (forget about balance sheet) then take pills to keep your distance with chaos.
I just can't keep silence here. I'm from Russia, but I can't not wonder what the French think about themselves. The French refuse to believe the facts. They have created their own alternative reality in which no one is right. The International Monetary Fund is not right, the World Economic Forum is not right, Standard and Poor's and Moody's are wrong of course, Bank of America is wrong , and the best business press in the world is wrong too. Who is right then? Maybe the facts are not good enough for you, but the Economist is right. And what does it all have to do with Britain? British problems aren't French problems, remember this. And there's another section in the journal about Britain if you haven't noticed yet. This article is about F-R-A-N-C-E. Why do you all so hope to find the facts about the UK here? No one in the Economist has ever said that Britain is doing extremely well. But the economic predictions are better for the UK, actually. British labour market is MUCH more flexible than the French one because it's even hard to imagine the country where the labour market would be in a more terrible mess. I think even in Russia it's better. It's impossible to do business in France , while in the UK you can do this. There are much more jobless in France than in Britain. British economy is much more competitive than the French one. The young people would rather live in Britain than in France. Britain has the great universities, and France hasn't got any. I can count all this for hours. I'm not an expert and I haven't written all this myself. The experts from the different international organisations have done this all before me. These are the facts. What else can I add? Of course the French are going to the hole very slowly. I know a lot about the holes as I live in the hole like this. If France wants to become a second Russia with all the locked economy and the only problems around, then the way is open. It' s always easier to repeat that all is great than to reform something. You could at least try to admit your problems.
don't believe all what the Economist (or any neo-liberal paper) says on France, it's almost caricatures, and pressions for influencing the French to adopt their view in EU, in the occurence the for the surviving of the euro (whereas the international banks have a lot to loose if it breaks down), they only worship businesses without borders and governments as executives of the international finances. UK, with its supposed less rigid labour rules, isn't in a better shape than France, and it's going likely to loose its Moody rating too
"It's impossible to do business in France , while in the UK you can do this."
really? oh then why France is ranking 5th by world GDP? (before UK!!!)
"The young people would rather live in Britain than in France."
first-time job seakers, some traders, hairdressers...and some suburbans (who wouldn't be singled as Maghrebin immigrants but as French)
"Britain has the great universities, and France hasn't got any."
yes we are a third world ountry LMAO
ever heard of the Sorbonne? where most of the upper class Americans that want to make a grade in roman languages are students, ever heard of our grrandes ecoles? that many "capitalist countries envy us? ever heard of the researches institutes in mathematics like ENSMA? ever heard of our medecine schools that are world class, most of innovative chirurgy interventions are done in France? ever heard of our Nobel price in physics? ever heard of our finances schools that are rated in the world top ten? ever heard of our numerous Chinese students who become more numerous each year? ...
I rather think that you're living in a third world NET bubble where you haven't access to free informative press
"the best business press in the world is wrong too"?
Have you checked TE is right, has been right, in the last decades?
1°) TE kept bashing any and every country. What and who for? Selling information (TE issues and ads)
2°) TE made major mistakes. Even F.O. Giesbert, CEO of French capitalist press "Le Point" confesses; this. End of Euro? ..
"You could at least try to admit your problems".
We do, all of France or Frenchmen do.
But we are not any better, individually, collectively, to make deep changes. Not worse either.
Can you please tell us if things have changed the right way in Russia for any "regular" Piotr. If yes, tell us how your country operated a change and the kind of money you used to pay that change.
If you ever speak French, or read French, pay attention to what is being said and most of all is being ACTED these coming months.
You're absolutely right, barabulatina.
The trade balance says it all:
And hey, don't believe in any facts. Just believe in naive, arrogant clowns like MC and everything will be fine...
The only person here who lives in the information bubble is you, unfortunately. And you have forgotten already that the question is not about comparing with Britain. It's about your own economy ( if you're French of course ). What I've heard about French higher education and its ability to teach the foreighners is that it's far behind the UK and Australia. Actually, this year France lost its position to Australia. More and more foreign students want to go to Australia and less and less want to go to France. Don't say this is a reason for getting upset. You still can get back your third position. I think there's no reason to mention all the international ratings where is said that the French universities are too small to competite with the others from English-speking world and Germany too. And yeah, Sorbonne is the only one university I have heard of. Could you name the others? Maybe I live in a terrible bubble. I respect Insead very much, but afraid that their opinion about the French problems is a little different from yours. And they're right. Yeah, the French have been talking for years that the AAA of the UK will be downgraded. Maybe you're right, maybe you're not, but the UK has its AAA and France doesn`t. What about doing business? The biggest economy of the world after US is China. Great GDP ets. , but not everything is okay with economic freedom and doing businesses. The same can be said about France. I'm very afraid you'll say it's great to live without any economic freedom, look at China, but it's not great. Okay, first-time job-seekers. They are the main category of any society. Your arguments are childish and laughable. This can be said about any country of the world. All the countries have universities. The question is whether they are popular behind the borders of this country.
No, nothing changed in Russia.
But Russia is not even democratic. France is democtatiс so it`s the absolutely different cases.
of course, the german euro doesn't help to sell our products on a world market that is ruled by the dollar, and we don't have overpriced products with a large margin like the german cars and tool machines, which would be sold even with a true DM, as rich people aren't regarding how much they pay for a luxuous car, but they do when they buy everyday life products like France produces.
Also, the german are keen to rob any european good enterprise, squatting it first, and delocating it to Germany afterword, the good ol german habits that we knew during the war.
exemple, EADS, Ariane space, they nuked the merger with BAE because they knew that they they couldn't control the businesses anymore, that the jobs wouldn't be delocated into Germany...
siphoning, is what the Germans know the best
yet, you're feed by Pravda
French universities are more priced than the russian universities, too bad, that you can't dragg tyrans from the muslim countries into them anymore, today they prefer the US universities, where lots of french teachers are operating too
Contrary to what you think, France education is priced there
AAA has nothing to do with reality, it's a political game for international finances that want that the countries comply to their dictats. And if they were credible, then it's a long time that the US and the UK would have been downgraded as junks debtor counties
"Analysts at the three biggest credit rating agencies who gave positive, investment-grade ratings to AIG and Lehman Brothers up until their collapse have not been fired or disciplined, the heads of the agencies admitted at a Congressional hearing today.
Moody's, Standard & Poor's, and Fitch Ratings all maintained at least A ratings on AIG and Lehman Brothers up until mid-September of last year. Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy Sept. 15; the federal government provided AIG with its first of four multibillion-dollar bailouts the next day."
"At the hearing today, the exchange between Speier and the agency chiefs was particularly contentious.
"You had rated AIG and Lehman Brothers as AAA, AA minutes before they were collapsing. After they did fail, did you take any action against those analysts who had rated them?" Speier asked. "Did you fire them? Did you suspend them? Did you take any actions against those who had put that kind of a remarkable grade on products that were junk?"
you're naive, you trust too much the anglo-saxon shows, that are ment to keep the illusion of their sanity the longer they can
Hello from an Italian in Trieste!
Until that idiot Berlusconi and the current Euro-crisis (which he did more than most to provoke) in Northern Italy we enjoyed one of the best standards of living in Europe and the world. (I would still like to believe we are not so badly off... although it is getting harder on a monthly basis to sustain that.) Speaking from that vantage point...
The French are right to mostly ignore the criticism from abroad.
First of all, they are not idiots and know how to count [well, at least up to 60 ;-)] and they know what their own accounts are.
Secondly, they enjoy some of the best living standards in the world. So, there's no need to pay too much attention to outsiders who are motivated mostly by ENVY.
L'Invidia, l'Invidia! ...as we say in Italian.
what surpises me most of is that the French so hate British and Amaricans. I supposed you all must be friends in this barbarian world, ha.
actually, Anglo-Saxon is a word that`s never used somewhere else. this is something very galliс, I think.
it seems to me that whatever you say, this is not very pleasant to live in a country where the young can`t find a job.
and no, the credit ratings are very important, of course.
but the countries whose ratings have been downgraded keep saying that it never affects their economic politics and all this is just a parody or a show.
this is not a show, no matter what you think about this.
definitly you aren't living on the same sphere as we do
the Anglo-Saxon word is used, not only in France
good luck with Putin, that is re-arming Russia at a high percentage
So we all got lost ?
Especially because we got excited with being richer with super open / super liberal economies.
There is a limit to it. Read carefully what guest-iimowmo wrote about Shakespeare and dare make a comment.
Last one thing : France is supposed to be run by socialist. I guess you heard of it? any comment?
I am sure you know the song "my heart belongs to daddy"?
Incredible, isn'it?
My heart belongs to Italy.
I realized that 30 years ago while watching long list of Italian-French movies. At the end, French and Italian names we mixed together.
I felt bad for your country in the last 15 years. Il Cavaliere is out now, take a long breath now :)
French Italian history is of course even a longer. We are "cousin" countries. This is maybe why our governments decided to work closely:
- they know "sometimes" we have a common way of running business successfuly, but not contempteously to others
- our countries are similar in size
- our countries are into aesthetic / mecanic / food business
- we can share a bottle of decent wine - no offense to Chilean or Australian or CA wines but ... still no comparision :)
Lack of vibes kills the market, anglo-saxon market. It brings no meaning to our personal lives. This is why it must be considered as a dangereous weapon (ref. Einstein, "technology is as dangereous as a weapon in the hand of a criminal").
Thank for your kind supporting comments.
You are about to shoot at our best French practice : LVMH, etc ..
I would like to show you how is working today only to discusse about this issue
The French elite is the problem: to egoistic and demanding from others.
Living example of today: EU agriculture share is 40% of overal budget, stupid!
How shall the EU compete with South-Korea, China, America by investing in Salad, milk etc. Is there any software company in Europe apart of SAP with global power? Europes inhabitants are getting older and older and we need to earn also money on future products!
The Euro introduction without political union is also a imbecility French idea. We are in the debt mesh, thanks to too cheap interest rate to the south countries. Remember their interest rates BEFORE Euro time were much much higher! To cheap money moved into buildings, or public jobs without any value creation. Thank you Mr Delores, he had only one target: KILL THE DEUTSCHE MARK!
yet Germany still get more from EU subsidies than France altogether.
Germany: € 25.5 billion
France: € 13.4 billion
Poland: € 65.2 billion
"How shall the EU compete with South-Korea, China, America by investing in Salad, milk etc."
Precisely, the PAC subsidies are ment for that big farms and big agro-alimentary companies can export at a affordable price to Asia, Africa.... which otherwise costs of production would make it imposssible
"Is there any software company in Europe apart of SAP with global power"
SAP, by any hasard is a german company, like if only the Germans could manage such a discipline
check, for France, we aren't undedevelopped in software industry
but as EU will never be the US of EU, each country is reluctant to share its researches, that also are specific to their own needs.
"Europes inhabitants are getting older and older and we need to earn also money on future products!"
Talk for your country, France, UK, Ireland aren't aging countries. I doubt that the French, or the Brit youngs are willing to pay for german elders.
"The Euro introduction without political union is also a imbecility French idea."
Funny how the Germans prefers to put the fault on the others when something doesn't work well.
The euro first, was a EU project since the seventies
second, if Kohl hadn't rescued the franc in 1992, when the pound and the lira were dumped by the markets, the euro adventure would still be virtual.
Germany knew what she wanted with the euro
Kohl thought, in the contrary it helped him to diminish the difference between eastern Germany workers's wages and western Germany workers's wages.
Mitterrand wasn't pushing for anything
What I already wrote x times on this board :
Mitterrand was going to throw the EMU baby and its water in 1992 when the franc was attacked with the pound and the lira, Kohl decided to rescue the franc for good reasons, France has always been the center of the EU scheme, without France, no EU, no euro, and as he didn't want that Germany became isolated....
Besides he needed the euro for absorbing Eastern Germany, it gave more time to the Ossies to adapt, as the euro was rating much lower than the DM at its begining (lower than the dollar too)
The euro was in the EU commission books since the seventies, just that Kohl took the reunification opportunity to promote it, without explaining why to the German population who would have rejected it. But still the Bundestag could have done it, and didn't, though none had a knife under his/her throat then
check from a Brit historian:
"Mitterrand, stricken by prostate cancer, was pale and drawn when he greeted Kohl on September 22. But he came straight to the point, telling the Chancellor – according to secret transcripts – that France might have no option than to leave the EMS. Kohl claimed to be unaware of the gravity of the crisis – prompting a Mitterrand tirade against the German central bank: "The speculation has been unleashed… I am aware of the independence of the Bundesbank, but what does it want? To remain the last one standing on a field of ruins? Because it will be a field of ruins."
"EU agriculture share is 40% of overal budget"
That's why EU is a scam for French peasants!
"How shall the EU compete with South-Korea, China, America by investing in Salad, milk etc."
Even Germany invested in microchips, couldn't compete against Asian and American companies. My Infineon-inside modem is showing all the problems of German high-tech products. Probably French may not be intelligent but wise enough to invest on easier agriculture.
from the EU commision:
Delors was working on the euro project with the Bundesbank before that the Berlin wall was teared down, hence the ECB anti-inflation policy cherished by the Germans.
Though during the 10 years of its existence the ECB has only been a Germany helping bank, rising its interests when Germany need it, ie after the 2000 years internet bubble, or lowering them at Germany's neeeds, when they were only harming the southern club, which then german banks weren't reluctant to drown with loans, hey, good benefits for german businesses, when these countries, according their previous interest rates should have been financed with precaution
In this affair, each country should assume its responsability, Germany is far from assuming her's.
Don't know where you got this information from?
If you don't check it, at least check your spelling : Dolores is a lady, Delors, still a tough cookie with two lobs for a brain and two balls for a package.
...not so. A scam for French, Brit, and other agro-businesses.
The common currency is an American project, not European...
care to provide a source please?
Talking to yourself?
Ring me when France gets to the bottom.... Probably next june
didn't ring a terrorist
"Thank you Mr Delores, he had only one target: KILL THE DEUTSCHE MARK!"
I am not German or of German descent, but I visit Germany at least once a year. And what I often hear from Wessies is that they have been ripped off by the switch to euro and that they yearn for a return to their beloved DM.
Btw. Slovaks and Slovenes who were initially enthusiastic about becoming part of EZ, now deeply resent it, and whenever possible travel to adjacent non-EZ countries for a major shopping.
E.g. supermarkets and shopping malls in S. Poland are overcrowded with Slovaks, particularly on weekends, which I have witnessed myself during a visit to Poland last summer.
Not that citizens of Brandenburg and M-vP don't travel to Polish cities just across the border for the same purpose.
Once at it can you tell me what the Mother of All Summits has agreed to last Friday re EU budget?
[I've been in the airlight for the last 48 hours, so I'm not up to date.
thank you,
read the links that I brought above
Merkin doesn't want to pay more than 1% of her country GDP to the EU budget, but to reduce the french CAP and maintain the UK rebate, that , to the detriement of France, because she needs UK in the EU club
what I wrote on another blog:
"we want our money back" too, hey as a net contribuator in billion euros: 19 075.6 (Germany 21 189.9), while UK of 12 918,3 and that we paid/pay for your Rebate the biggest (by far) part (1,6 billion euros until last year)
and that still your CAP is 4 152 153.3
(page 7)
France isn't in the top 10 for the EU subsidies, like you would like that the people believe
UK wants to diminish its EU contribution and the eurocrats wages
I can't but agree with that
Germany though is playing the "devil" part, if she undermines France for getting UK support, then she can't expect that Hollande will buy into her "integration" myth, so that she wins the next german elections
Thanks for you reply although it's not "my" CAP of tea.
[I'm from across the Pond]
P.S. I hear that a lot of French, esp. Socialists are upset by Hollande's alleged "betrayal of the Socialist principles", still subscribe to statism and don't believe that France has lost its competitive edge and/or needs any labor law/bureaucracy's reform.
What do you see from your vista?
It would be interesting to know if Mitterand knew at that point (I doubt) that Bundesbank President Helmut Schlesinger had spoken privately to George Soros and told him that "... he did not expect the Lira to remain within the EMS" communicating to Soros what the Buba did not communicate to Rome - that it would not cooperate any longer with the Bank of Italy - thus inviting Soros to speculate against the Lira. (Soros himself related these events about a decade later).
The Bank of Italy spent $40 billion of our reserves in a vain attempt to defend the value of the Lira, thinking that the Bundesbank was on board - and not knowing that Schlesinger had already made an alliance with hedge fund speculators (i.e. "the market"). In this case, Soros was like those illegal arms traders that the Great Powers use to supply weapons around the world when they don't want their own fingerprints on the guns.
Of course, Soros was not satisfied with the $500 million he made in one day speculating against the Lira - so he gambled all that money the next day against the Pound Sterling, and earned $1.5 billion in a single day forcing that currency out of the EMS.
Why did Schlesinger organise the attack against the Lira? Because he disdained Italy and was convinced Rome should not be a part of the currency union, else it fail. (This, in his own words related also about a decade later).
But the real reason is that much of the German elite has never accepted that they should have lost World War II. Since no German is culturally capable of admitting their own mistakes, the blame must always be someone else's. And of course, if the Jews provoked the failure of Germany in the First World War, we Italians provoked their failure in the Second World War (see the Battles of Stalingrad and El Alamein). The truth is that the Euro-crisis is political and not economic in origin - and that the political problem derives from the fact that Germany has never forgiven us for World War II.
Why does Germany not participate in the logical action at this point: gifting a few billion to Greece to prevent default, contagion and the collapse of the Euro? Because "behind Greece there is Italy". A ludicrous analysis, but tell it to the Germans. In the meantime, their policies over Greece are doing everything to transform Italy from a core country into a periphery country. Which is what they have always wanted of course. Since 1957.
In the meantime, while they are waiting for Italian default/insolvency - which will never come (our banks are the world's oldest): Greece had had to be rescued at great effort, Ireland, Portugal... Cyprus has in theory just reached an agreement with the ECB, Spain is asking for help for its banks, perhaps €65 billion.
Now, Slovenia does not have money to pay December public wages. Which country is next? Certainly not Italy.
Unicredit Bank is the largest in Austria and Bavaria and third-largest in Germany (soon to be the second largest). The Germans vastly underestimate how much our economy is tied to theirs. In the end it will be Germany and Italy left alone in the Euro - and the Germans will still be screaming about Italy provoking the collapse of the unified currency.
Germany will not remain with Italy alone in a "euro" union with Italy, she would prefers her Mittel Europa Lebensraum in any case.
her ties with france were forced by the allies, and so far she can't remove them without their agreement.
We would like to be free from this EU/euro scam. If what we gave to the EU since the beginning ot its existence was still in France, there wouldn't be such a Debt, nor a loss of competiveness.
I have read about Soros, the Bundesbank and the lira too
The country with the most to lose if the Euro dies, is Germany.
If the Deutsche Mark returned it would be valued at twice the current value of the Euro or more. This would wipe out the German export market. It would wipe out the German economy.
This is why Germany (Merkel) has found ways to allow the ECB's to start the bond buying program. Italy and Spanish bond yields were at unsustainable levels and would have ended the Euro very quickly.
This trick only buys time. It does not fix the key issue. Governments promising more to their citizens than they can possibly raise revenue through taxes to pay for. It is a death sprial.
I am from the US. I follow this closely, partially because I worked for a large German company for 10 years. I can retire in 10 or so years. I cannot survie another crash, rather, I have to figure out to profit from it.
We are doing the same thing in the US, but, we have only one currency. Japan and China too are also funding government spending through bond buying by their central banks.
The only question is which house of cards comes crashing down first. It has happend every time fiat currency's are used, EVERY SINGLE TIME! The Weimer Republic and France in the 1790's post revolution. In France when their fiat money scheme failed, they began to guillotine people who used gold to pay debts.
It is not a question of IF, but WHEN and WHO
@ Milovan/Joe:
"But the real reason is that much of the German elite has never accepted that they should have lost World War II. Since no German is culturally capable of admitting their own mistakes, the blame must always be someone else's. And of course, if the Jews provoked the failure of Germany in the First World War, we Italians provoked their failure in the Second World War (see the Battles of Stalingrad and El Alamein). The truth is that the Euro-crisis is political and not economic in origin - and that the political problem derives from the fact that Germany has never forgiven us for World War II."
Joe, here's a hint:
When you notice you are comparing the ITALIANS of today to the JEWS during WWII, stop right there. It's a clear sign you are writing nonsense.
For more, see my next post.
(To be ctd.)
@ Milovan/Joe (ctd):
I've heard many a crazy conspiracy theory from you, but the above is my favourite, because it's so ridiculously self-centered and WAY out there.
Let's begin and end with the last line:
In the German memory of WWII, Italy plays hardly ANY role whatsoever. People remember Mussolini was an ally of Hitler's, but that's about it.
When it comes to WWII, you guys are simply not on the radar – left alone that anybody would think you had played a decisive role (for better or worse). So why should people hold grudges against a country they never considered particularly relevant in WWII in the first place?
And I'm not even addressing your reproach that the Germans havent gotten over losing WWII because it's such obvious nonsense. The Germans have many regrets when it comes to WWII; not winning it is not one of them. If it were any different, they must be hiding their true sentiments very well for so many decades, and I don't quite see that.
So there goes your conspiracy.
You should watch the spectacular Formula One race instead of writing nonsense.
I can understand France's position on the debt. But this is where the question of the French trade balance comes into play. Because the money France spent on Italian development - let's say in the 70's and 80's - came back in the form of large exports of Peugeot's, Citroen's and Renault's sold in our country.
So, given that most of EU money is going to Central Europe - is France exporting to Central Europe? To Slovenia, Hungary, Croatia, Romania and some other places? Yes. My impression is that to Poland and the Czech Republic less (note that Greece was buying French arms also, recently).
To this degree, the article has a point. Not that France is any time-bomb or vulnerable economy - but that a France with a better trade balance would be more in favour of the Euro.
For what it's worth, I am driving a Peugeot these days - albeit an older model. ;-)
I think Renault and PSA need to find a way back into the North American market for French-made cars.
BTW, I have a cousin who was one of Renault's largest dealers in the US during the 1980's. ;-) The office and engineering complex that Sergio Marchionne currently inhabits was sponsored by Francois Castaing, who remained with Jeep after Renault sold out in 1986. This is part of the problem with the PSA-GM Opel alliance: GM would never offer access to "its" American market to Peugeot, which is what they really need.
Question #1: Did you grow up in the Germany, Josh? And, did you have any family members who fought alongside Italians in Africa or Russia? (250,000 Italian soldiers were sent to flank German troops in the Soviet Union.)
Question #2: Have you ever actually studied the history of European integration - and not the official dates, but the back scene stories of how the various treaties were approved? Italian history books on the subject spend much time recounting the background stories - and how the northern European countries attempted to screw Italy over at each and every step toward further integration (frequently succeeding, thanks to the incompetence of our diplomats).
There is the story of the famous milk quotas. Our representative stepped out to go to the bathroom, and the German and Dutch representatives achieved an instant compromise that heavily penalised Italian milk-producers. The quota agreed upon for our country was completely impossible to enforce - with the result that we were "in violation" of milk production quotas for the better part of two decades.
Do you know anything about how hard Germany (and France) fought diplomatically to keep Italy out of NATO in the beginning? And out of the West European Union?
Your rose-coloured version of German politics and history convinces nobody.
Nobody in Germany regrets not winning the war? THAT is a believable story that greatly explains why there is crisis today. No wonder the Euro is falling apart - with that level of denial and hypocrisy in Germany.
Are you aware Josh that it was either illegal or impossible to speak of the "Hitlerzeit" in Germany until circa 1972? What Germans acknowledge openly about themselves and the objective truth are two entirely different planets.
this is getting too nonsensical for me. I have no idea what the EU's milk quotas have to do with accepting Germany's guilt for WWII.
But I am pretty certain that my knowledge of Europan integration is better than yours when you write stuff like this:
1) "Do you know anything about how hard Germany (and France) fought diplomatically to keep Italy out of NATO in the beginning? And out of the West European Union?"
ITALY (1949) was a NATO member BEFORE WEST GERMANY (1955).
2) "Are you aware Josh that it was either illegal or impossible to speak of the "Hitlerzeit" in Germany until circa 1972?"
Germans began publicly debating the extent of their WWII crimes with the Auschwitz trials in Frankfurt in 1963.
If you've seen the movie "The reader", based on a novel by Bernhard Schlink, as you've said you have, you should know that.
Of course, it was never "illegal" to publicly speak about Hitler's regime earlier (what utter nonsense!) - in the years immediately following the war, there was simply a lot of denial as to the extent of the involvement of ordinary people. That changed in the 1960s.
As for dealing with a difficult past today: In Germany, there's the huge Holocaust Memorial in the very center of Berlin, right next to Parliament building and Brandenburg Gate. In Italy, you haven't even torn down all fascists memorials as yet.
Thanks for the info - I stand corrected on NATO, having confused West Germany with opposition to Italy's membership coming from France and the Benelux countries.
I had forgotten West Germany did not join NATO until much later. Did you know the country did not join the UN until 1972?
So, Italy is a founding member of NATO and Germany no. Interesting.
BTW, what Fascist memorials? You are confusing Fascist-era memorials with Fascist memorials. There were/are many Fascist-era memorials to World War I that are still quite popular for tourists - one of the most famous being very close to my house in Redipuglia.
Central Europe countries are suffering of the EZ recesssion too, and aren't buying much these days, even italian products.
Don't worry for France, the Maghreb and Africa are a reserve which doesn't depend on the EZ wealthiness
Spain and Portugal were bigger clients for France than Mittel Europa, the German chasse gardée !
the only thing that will solve the euro crisis, it's its dismentlement
"Do you know anything about how hard Germany (and France) fought diplomatically to keep Italy out of NATO in the beginning? And out of the West European Union?"
I doubt that France did, since she was out of NATO with de Gaulle
But, weren't you the one that complained about NATO, and its ingerence into italian policies not so long ago?
"Did you know the country did not join the UN until 1972?"
too much grappa, hey Joe? Germany accessed to a tempry seat at UN in 2010
Admit it, learning that Italy joined NATO six full years ahead of West Germany saved your day, right? On second thought, I believe it was a mistake I mentioned it; I can already see you drone on and on and on about your seniority in that club! LOL
2) Kidding aside, "FASCIST MONUMENTS" (plural) was admittably a bit of a figure of speech. I was referring to this one in particular:
You will probably like it, as its inscription essentially describes German-speaking South Tyrolians as "barbarians", but from what I've heard, it's become a bit of a spoiler in what has otherwise become a rather exemplary integration of a national minority.
Yes, I knew about that. It had to do with the fact that West Germany did not recognize East Germany diplomatically prior to 1971, and had its allies at the Security Council (US, UK, F) block the GDR's accession to the UN, while the Soviet Union in turn blocked West Germany's accession. That changed with Willy Brandt's "Ostpolitik".
Joe's right about that last bit.
1. I admit it ;-)
2. Actually, I think the insinuation about educating the "barbarians" probably was meant for EVERYBODY north of that point- Danes included, so to speak.
Just for the record, I find that monument rather offensive. We have a lot of that symbolism also around Trieste, although other methods have been found to tone down the nationalistic nature of these monuments. To note that the public ceremonies are always held here in Trieste and nearby Redipuglia - which is the Italian equivalent of Arlington Cemetery - while the politicians give Bolzano and that monument a wide berth. The Italian-language version of the wiki article points out that all the national Left parties voted together with the Suedtirolischer Volkspartei to alter the monument.
3. So in other words it was the intra-German issue that determined West Germany's late arrival at the UN? I had imagined it was more the reluctance of the victorious powers to let Germany join - although that theory would not explain why Japan was allowed to join in 1955 (in theory we had achieved "co-belligerent" status in 1943 and should have escaped the more onerous punishments - for example, no Nuremberg Trials in Italy, unfortunately).
ad 1) He-he;-).
ad 2) I'm sure that the South Tyrolians will feel so much better knowing that they are not the only "barbarians" in your eyes. LOL
ad 3) I believe both is true. AFAIK, Germany and Japan were initially kept out of the UN and not allowed to rearm, but that ban was lifted during the Korean War, when the US felt it faced a united Soviet-Sino front and needed all hands on deck. The delay between 1953 and 1972 can be blamed on West Germany's policy of non-recognition of the GDR.
Hello, I am studying this "lack of competitiveness of France" in school, but I do not quite understand what kind of competitiveness Frances problem. Is it quality of products, prices, taxes on M and X, manpower or what. It would really help me to know this.
Oh so now it's in the curriculum... Talk about indoctrination!
Ask TE, it's sooooo aware about it !
Re Hollande's promises...
Socialists' policies are always popular with masses until Socialist rulers run out of OTHER PEOPLE's money.
Since they incapable of gnenerating any wealth themselves.
[cf. USSR and Soviet-occupied E. European countries]
"Socialist rulers run out of OTHER PEOPLE's money"
Yes Mr Sarkozy was using his own money* - that's why he had a meeting today with an investigating magistrate.
Seems the panoply of anti-socialist weapons of mind destruction is as weak in content as it is limited in scope. Always the same recurrent memes... Are they taught at school, too, like "the lack of competitiveness of France" that poor guest-innomsm has to learn by rote?
* Sorry! His "hard-earned" money - somehow conservatives seem always to sweat a lot as they scrape for a living. Might explain the smell in the subway.
You must be the smartest one.
Can we - again - remind you politely - this French curtesy again... - that France belongs to Germany's TOP business partners, if not the first. Germany would not choose an unwealthy looser as a partner, would it really?
Also .. 2nd with International direct investments in Europe, etc..
You must be the smartest one.
Can we - again - remind you politely - this French curtesy again... - that France belongs to Germany's TOP business partners, if not the first. Germany would not choose an unwealthy looser as a partner, would it really?
Germany kept selling weapons to Greece (which hardly needed any) in order to boost its own economy. And extending credits for such purchases.
If Berlin chose Greece as their 'worthy partner', so it would France - now in a typical Socialist doo-doo.
[Socialists as usual eventually
running out of OTHER PEOPLE's money]
Btw. Germany itself is going to go into a recession within the next 6 months according to the top German economists.
And what then, my love?
[with failed Italy alone requiring ca 2 TRILLION euro bailout]
You must be the smartest one.
Can we - again - remind you politely - this French curtesy again... - that France belongs to Germany's TOP business partners, if not the first. Germany would not choose an unwealthy looser as a partner, would it really?
Germany kept selling weapons to Greece (which hardly needed any) in order to boost its own economy. And extending credits for such purchases.
If Berlin chose Greece as their 'worthy partner', so it would France - now in a typical Socialist doo-doo.
[Socialists as usual eventually
running out of OTHER PEOPLE's money]
Btw. Germany itself is going to go into a recession within the next 6 months according to the top German economists.
And what then, my love?
[with failed Italy alone requiring ca 2 TRILLION euro bailout]
"Seems the panoply of anti-socialist weapons of mind destruction is as weak in content as it is limited in scope."
Seems Socialists need badly and ASAP some weapons of MATH INSTRUCTION.
"Where have all the flowers gone?"
Such as Socialist Cuba, USSR, Soviet Empire, Socialist Yugoslavia, Vietnam etc.?
Down the toilet, last time I checked.
"Seems the panoply of anti-socialist weapons of mind destruction is as weak in content as it is limited in scope."
Seems Socialists need badly and ASAP some weapons of MATH INSTRUCTION.
"Where have all the flowers gone?"
Such as Socialist Cuba, USSR, Soviet Empire, Socialist Yugoslavia, Vietnam etc.?
Down the toilet, last time I checked.
DominiqueII to PMK: "Seems the panoply of anti-socialist weapons of mind destruction is as weak in content as it is limited in scope."
Seems Socialists need badly and ASAP some weapons of MATH INSTRUCTION.
"Where have all the flowers gone?"
Such as Socialist Cuba, USSR, Soviet Empire, Socialist Yugoslavia, Vietnam etc.?
Down the toilet, last time I checked.
Stop the fight, you OR I, does not matter.
I am not calling you my love, so you don't.
French are French.
Nothing to do with etiquettes like "socialists" and so on ..
Our country has started being oriented this way after 1929 crisis. Not a single governement, not even a war (WW2) have stop this continuous trend.
Not to say we don't have to stop it though.
We know, of course Hollande knows, we MUST make decisions responsibly: not throw the extra money we don't have in air. Stopping a "machinery" that "functioned" for decades is not easy.
"Berlin chose Greece". I don't like this contempteous phrasing. You must be two to make a deal.
Please give the names of the German economists you mentioned, otherwise your comment does not exist.
"Please give the names of the German economists you mentioned, otherwise your comment does not exist."
The whole Board of German Economic Advisors predicted that Germany would enter into a recession next year.
Quoted in the very German Der SPIEGEL.
[you can easily look it up in its on line edition]
Btw. Germany is already hovering just above 0% growth as we speak.
Il you want to help me out, please be more precise and give names, nothing to be afraid of.
See how France can handle all this global conversation?
On the one side, TE "brings" light to those "totally blind French".
On the other side, some like Marie Clear, who :
- not only "wakes up early to go to work" (words of Sarkozy) but really never sleeps
- is well organized to give a total coverage of any post on this site
- ready to fight any argument, from anywhere in the world
- has a good sense of humour sometimes
- etc ...
Maybe France is not THAT "unrealistic - philosophy rooted - cranky person"? Maybe France is likely to face reality responsibly? Like the Americans say : "give it a try".
don't say that to my mother, she believes that I'm with angels
mind me calling you Marie?
Do you have interests in Innovation Management?
Just love this topic ...
uh, what's "Innovation Management"?
Following UMP shenanigans.
Innovation management is actually the point Gallois missed, miss... it starts on page 11, point a.
- Is 2% enough support to innovation when it comes to the country purchases to small innovative businnesses?
- As far as innovation is concerned, reforming the role of Regions structurally is not a sufficient step either ...
Innovation is what the US do "naturally".
We use to say "France as no oil, but it has ideas".
Long time ago, I know.
But you might be a dinosaure too ;) ...
France still innovates but French are not considered (in all extend) while they are innovative.
Innovation Management is part of the answer = support innovation in companies without considering it's all R&D to find solutions, it doesn't. Sure technology helps, but never been super creative. Tooooo scientific too embrace this issue.
If interested, when all this conversation is over, send me an email at firstname.lastname@example.com
We can have a coffee sometimes.
Have a good one !
uh innovation, innovation, I'm rather conservative, most of the old shemas were working right, they just have to be simplified
Then, how do you explain Europe and France have no equivalent for Apple or even Google?
Right, we have great planes or reliable cars to make us brilliant...
We would have no technololgy?
We would have no sufficient brain or education?
We would have no money?
We would not have the appropriate integrated market size?
Not at all.
We miss the needed impetus towards innovation, per se.
Bold strikes!
because EUrope is a leurre
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