Comments to the post below that affirm Germany's effective management of the EU are all quite correct - as we have written here many times before. Yet it is the shackling of Germany to France that is at the heart of the EU dynamic - and that dynamic is currently undergoing one of its periodic stress tests. Comments doubting Germany's ability to rearm are also, I suspect, correct - based on my own experience of many German young people, albeit Bavarians, men and women who eschew militarism in any form. But of whom few would not support Germany's using her economic clout to achieve continental dominance. However even that is seriously in doubt - as AEP, who terms the Eurozone the 'global .. chief parasite" writes in the Telegraph. -
For anyone not up to speed on the shenanigans in Brussels, it's time for turn and turn about amongst the EU's unelected officials. The various presidents are up for appointment by their chums. For Juncker's job, the Germans want an utterly mediocre, unimaginative compliant nobody who will do as their other German, Martin Selmayr, requires. The French want their own man in the job. Or rather the bullish Dane, Margrethe Vestager, who shares Macron's agenda. However, her getting one president's job may not happen if another president's job is given to Verhofstadt. Clear?
With the downturn already biting at the EU, and no tools left for the ECB to use, and with the Donald ready to deliver a few well-placed kicks in terms of car tariffs and exchange rate action, with a potential oil-price crisis on the horizon, potential global sanctions against Nordstream II, Italy on the verge of launching a parallel currency and an irritated Visegrad group, the EU may find itself lumbered with a dreary and mediocre bunch of compromise candidates in the top officials' jobs at a time when authoritative leadership is needed to survive.
Mark Rutte has today warned the UK that Brexit will give us problems. Not a fraction of those that are about to descend on you, chum.
18 comments:
So when are these presidential elections Raedwald?
I do hope so, a plague upon them!
A couple of excerpts from a CTH article of two days ago.
" President Trump is not selling the U.S. electorate short on their ability to understand the financial dynamic of ‘globalists -vs- nationalists’. President Trump is calling attention to currency manipulation by China and the EU. "
"The nations that devalue their currency drive up inflation within their own economy. In German, France, etc., and/or in China,… bread, cheese, butter or basically any product costs more. People within those economies pay more for their “stuff” as the central planning group drive down the value of their currency; it hurts the internal citizens of the country doing the devaluation. Inflation hurts them; their wages buy less; stuff costs them more."
Donald J. Trump
Verified account @realDonaldTrump
Jun 18
Mario Draghi just announced more stimulus could come, which immediately dropped the Euro against the Dollar, making it unfairly easier for them to compete against the USA. They have been getting away with this for years, along with China and others.
The supreme power of the European Union is its Council of the twenty-eight - soon to be twenty-seven - leaders of the member states.
Juncker - a civil servant - answers to them.
There are also seven hundred and fifty-one MEPs, of whom Germany has about ninety, according to its population, as against the UK's seventy-three. However, they vote along political, not national lines, e.g. Orban's idiots tend to vote with Farage's clowns, Greens with Greens, and so on.
Pleas explain the mechanism, by which anyone in Germany controls the half-a-billion or so folk of the EU and their countries?
PS, the reason for which currencies such as Sterling and the euro are weak is low interest rates.
If you remember, these were dropped to stimulate activity, following the global credit and banking crisis, which was caused by the US exporting the negative equity of its poor to unsuspecting buyers here. That was enabled by the fraudulent misrepresentations of the US Ratings Agencies, as we now know.
Eurozone inflation is at a couple of percent, like many other places.
The problem with the Euro is that within the eurozone, either Germany has to transfer money on an epic scale or the other countries -PIIGS primarily but not just them - have to accept a permanent second class status that will eventually grind their productive sectors to dust.
The political reality of the economic mechanism that was to force the politics is the politics of permanent and essentially politically unresolvable conflict.
This was predicted and it is happening.
All they (Germany) have left is to "try it on" economically with the world at large.
It's not going to end well.
Brexit is about (or should be about) getting as far away from this political/economic asteroid impact as possible.
Germany (the EU) controlling other EU countries?? Had a look at Greece recently? Or maybe the 'EU'-appointed leader of Italy? Fiscal policy??
Anyone that thinks that Germany doesn't influence EU policy or control much of it is simply ignorant of the facts. Immigration? Hardly an EU-policy so much as open borders announced by Merkel and all other countries suffering as a result.
Even the media refer to Germany/Merkel rather than announcement of policies supposedly created/enacted by the EU.
And all 27 countries agreed the terms of the Brexit/Working Agreement?? B.u.l.l.s.h.i.t.
@Cheerful Edward,
Jesus H christ man THE EURO
Ed has finally gone full retard, you never go full retard.
OK, what DID cause the global credit crisis and resulting zero interest rates then?
How, Mark?
Trump claims that the euro is too weak. You claim that it is too strong for the southern EU countries.
Which is it?
And please name a euro country, where there is a clear majority in favour of abandoning it?
And so it's the EU to blame for Greece's problems, and not PASOK etc. socialism then?
@Cheerful Edward
OK
The Euro is run by Germany, for Germany.
It is weaker than the Mark would have been and is effectively a devalued Mark as far as German exports are concerned, which is what the Donald refers to. Of course, Germany can play innocent but the Donald isn't fooled.
As far as the southern European countries are concerned, it replaced their weaker currencies and they are locked in at unfavourable exchange rates with the normal correction mechanisms (exchange tates and interest rates) unavailable. The economic vice tightens as surely as night follows day.
It is both. Why you refuse to acknowledge what you cannot fail to understand I do not know, but you do (as is your right of course).
No EU country as far as I know wants to abandon it but so what. This does not change the economic realities, it just means that actual economic solutions (if there ARE any manageable solutions) cannot even be discussed.
Greece's problems are Greece's problems. What the Euro (which is for is the EU) has done is precisely as above but on steroids given the even greater disparity economically etc between Greece and Germany.
Who's to blame for that? IMHO they all are, but take your pick: Greece, who blatantly fabricated economic data; Goldman Sachs who took $300 million or so to polish the turd; Germany, who accepted this "analysis" knowing full well what a pile of shite it was; the other EU finance ministers (or whoever) who did the same.
Actually, Germany must take the primary responsibility as they could have said no. It might not be your fault that the hopeless drunk is a hopeless drunk but if you knowingly give him the keys to your car.
Wasting my time I know but you did ask.
So why would it be perfectly fair in Trump's and in your view, for the southern EU countries to have their own currencies, but even weaker than the euro?
About what would you whimper then?
The US *caused* global record low interest rates. Get over it.
@Cheerful Edward,
I was wasting my time!
Apologies if I was wasting anybody else's
You're not a troll, you're a complete fucking mythology!!
Yes, Mark, you are wasting your time with your inaccurate, repetitive, verbose waffle.
It only takes a few words. Answer the question.
If the US's exporting its poor's negative equity did NOT cause the global banking crisis and ensuing zero interest rates, then what DID?
@Cheerful Edward
Probably Dr Evil from one of his underground lairs. I should think his plague of killer nanobots is eating through servers as we speak.
But never fear, the Eurozone is safe! Captain Euro stands vigilant guard over it (doesn't wear a blue spandex perv suit anymore though. I think he's the president of the euro region formerly known as France these days) - doing what he's told by the Kaiserin.
PS change your handle, you don't seem that cheerful these days. How about TROLL: Total Rejection Of Logic and Lucidity
Haha!
As you say, you can't think of an alternative explanation.
Thanks Mark.
@Cheerful Edward
So how does the Euro protect the countries within it from global shocks?
Make your triumph complete by answering. It would be a first.
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