EU Spectacle
The word spectacle is carefully chosen, since this is what the current drama of which Greece is the symptom, not the cause, has become. It no longer bears any relationship to coherent democratic leadership or process of governance in a workable political and currency union. The cancellation at a moment’s notice of a summit of all EU leaders is extraordinary.
There is a problem with Greece, but it is not that difficult to solve. Indeed this blog working alone would be able to negotiate a workable solution. What is proving impossible is to find an acceptable solution, because the institutions normally established to process decision making at national and international levels are not there, or there in such abundance nobody can detect who is in charge. And to make matters worse the structure of the currency itself is unsustainable as it lacks a treasury and a finance minister answering to an elected government. A committee of finance ministers at loggerheads, elected by only one member state in each case, on conflicting mandates and to differing electoral timetables will work only in the good times and becomes dysfunctional under pressure.
So all we know at this moment is that Greece may or may not go bust tomorrow, the euro looks more like an impediment to growth than an engine of it, and the reputation of the EU as a coherent political union is severely damaged. Beneath that a big gap is developing between the north and the south of Europe, between the politicians and their electors everywhere and between those in the eurozone who want to stand firm to high principle even if it brings the whole thing down, led by the Germans, and by those who feel pragmatic reality demands compromise, led by France and Italy.
At the heart of of this crisis now engulfing the whole EU are three violated principles. You cannot have a democratic political union without an elected forum from which all authority flows. You cannot have a currency which cannot be printed. You cannot have capitalism which does not permit debtors to go bust. The first is violated because the whole EU is wrongly configured. The last two are rescinded because Germany says No.
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Linda
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Dec 25, 2015 07:23AM
You say that one hundred years ago Britain was one of the great industrial powers of the world. But you see everything has gotten beyond that now. You don't have to be a great industrial power anymore. You have to move into something else like the financial sector. And then there are post industrial companies like Apple. Besides you must have some remnant of industrial stuff going on somewhere. Everybody seems to. When we were driving through Germany last summer I can attest that we saw something industrial going on with smokestacks in the Ruhr area near Cologne.
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Britain can't be that bad off. Why is everything so expensive in London? It's one of the most expensive cities in the world. Real estate is out of sight. Somebody must be buying it. It can't just be something about the currency.
House price inflation is now the main driver of the U.K. Economy. That and shopping. House prices rise at 10% pa but inflation is at near zero. Foreigners pour money into London real estate because they think it will go on rising.All consumer spending is funded by debt. Britain owes more money to the rest of the world than any other apart from the US. The economic model is mathematically unsustainable and will eventually crash. Germany's economy is not only bigger but much more broadly based. German industry is the most powerful in Europe.
Linda wrote: "Did you do after dinner speeches? Was it for a publisher? Still it sounds interesting. I've never heard of that here unless it goes by another name. Is it the same as getting booked for a speaking ..."Actually I have never talked about books or writing. Only politics and not for years.
If you point out that the US has the same type of economy as the UK and both owe lots of money and you say it will crash, think again. What about companies like Apple, Microsoft, Google, etc. They've created whole new segments of the economy. Also there is Amazon, too. That's also something new. Do they look as if they are about to crash?
The phone companies in the US are making so much money that if you as a customer call them and complain about your bill you will almost always get a discount just because you called. I don't remember that in the past.
What about the advertising industry and Facebook? That must be one of the fastest growing businesses around nowadays. It's created a whole new way to advertise products.
I think that nowadays is akin to the late nineteenth century, the Age Of The Robber Barons in the US. You can prove it by looking at how silly and trivialized politics has become. The people talked about are captains of industry and business instead. Whether it's all leading to another WW1 no one can say. I don't think you can see the end of it all yet.
Linda wrote: "If you point out that the US has the same type of economy as the UK and both owe lots of money and you say it will crash, think again. What about companies like Apple, Microsoft, Google, etc. They'..."The UK economy is absolutely nothing like the US. The US is energy self sufficient, has a vast manufacturing base covering aerospace, defense, hitec, computers,information technology, the list goes on and on. Moreover the US makes most of what it consumes. The UK and US used to be similar but no longer. We no longer make any consumer goods; no TVs or pads or phones. We are utterly dependent on asset inflation and borrowing. We no longer even have a skilled labour force. We even have to import electric power. It is a complete farce.
Linda wrote: "I think that nowadays is akin to the late nineteenth century, the Age Of The Robber Barons in the US. You can prove it by looking at how silly and trivialized politics has become. The people talked..."Where the two countries are similar is in the crackpot notion that if you spend high and tax low wealth will cascade down from top to bottom. In fact the gap between rich and poor in both countries is bigger than it's ever been in the last 200 years.
When you say the gap between the rich and the poor is bigger than it has ever been in 200 years, part of this could be explained by immigration. 200 years ago most people in both countries were Anglo or western European. Now you have immigrants from the Third World. It is a bigger gap to overcome. This thought just occurred to me. But it shows how much farther the Anglo world has spread its civilization.
What do you mean that you no longer have a skilled labor force? You mean that no one has an education? Where do you import electric power from? Do you have any nuclear power generators? The US also has hydro-electric power from western dam projects.
California alone supposedly has enough industry, business, agriculture, wine, and economic activity to make it seventh in the world as if it were a separate country.
Linda wrote: "What do you mean that you no longer have a skilled labor force? You mean that no one has an education? Where do you import electric power from? Do you have any nuclear power generators? The US al..."
Because there are fewer skilled jobs available like plumbers, carpenters, bricklayers, metal workers, engineers, IT engineers etc, students go for pointless subjects with an academic ring, like sociology and media studies.
The when we want to build more houses we have to import Poles to do the skilled work. If it's new nuclear power stations we have to send for the French and Chinese.
Our auto industry is actually doing very well, but not a single car maker is British owned. Either American,(Ford, Vauxhall; German, Mini, Rolls Royce, Bently; Indian, Jaguar, Land Rover ; Japanese have Honda, Nissan and Toyota factories here.
We used to be self sufficient in power which was nuclear, coal, hydro electric, gas and oil. We had a 20% margin at peak times to avoid outages. We have not bothered to build new power stations to replace the old ones so now we are down to 1% margin. When there is a surge we have to import via cable from France.
Meanwhile we have lost the skills to build the replacements now needed so we have to contract it out to foreign firms.
I still am not sure what you mean by losing "skills". Do you mean blue collar work? That's what it sounds like. But that is an increasing trend period. More "citizens" take white collar subjects like sociology, media studies, English, foreign languages, and probably the pure sciences, too, like chemistry and physics. It's left to immigrants and foreigners to supply the people to fix and build things. I know that was true when I lived in Charlottesville. The manager at the Sears store told me that he had plenty of customers calling in with work to do, but he didn't have enough workers and technicians to do all the home repairs. What is interesting is that last summer when I was briefly in Charlottesville again for the first time in 17 years I noticed lots of "foreigners" hanging around certain places in the town where they hadn't been before. But Charlottesville was always a white collar town.
Pittsburgh --- another place I was visiting last summer --- is another example. Pittsburgh as everyone knows was a huge steel making center. In Dora's day, the skies were black at noon time. But nowadays the steel factories have closed. They have gone high tech. Apple has built a "campus" there. Everyone in town has access to super high speed internet. We were staying at hotel called Extended Stay. It was right next to a business called Bombadier. Right down the road was Bettis Atomic Power. Carnegie Mellon in Oakland has contracts with firms to design software, etc. It has made the transition from industrial to post-industrial. We visited a section of town called Monroeville to see my sister's old house (she's now in Massachusetts). We also found out that this is the section of town where lots of people from India have recently congregated. But this is unusual for Pittsburgh, which is a very insular place with very few foreigners since the days of big-time immigration in the 19th century. But these foreigners are mostly white collar, too. Amazing!
You say that you have to import Poles to do the work of building houses? Here they have Mexicans. I remember several years ago having a roof put on my carport. You could see the Mexicans taking siestas on my driveway at noon time making sure to stay in the shade. They were almost certainly illegals hired by the roofing company who did the work.
Where we were staying in Charlottesville this summer at the Super 8 there was a Chinese laundry across the parking lot which wasn't there before. There was a Mexican grocery store on the other side of the parking lot. And when you went to the gas station across the street I couldn't understand the languages I was hearing spoken.
When I lived in Charlottesville they had good old boys with southern accents working at the 7/11 where we went to take out breakfast this past summer. Now they had Mexicans. You'd think you were in Tucson.
Interesting points.I am going to go quiet for the next few days till after New Year as I am way behind with my book and have to catch up. Also I have trips to Kent and Bristol as well. There will be the odd short blog!
We were only in Britain for about 4 to 5 hours this past summer on a shore excursion, but as we were leaving the Ocean Terminal in Southampton the lady giving away tourist literature was definitely a Brit. When we got to the Tudor House and Garden the lady selling postcards and souvenirs was another Brit. So was the lady in the cafe who waited on us. On the way back we stopped at a postcard/book shop that was run by another Brit and his assistant. When we re-entered the cruise terminal, the man who stopped us at the gate and asked to see ID was a Brit. So was the man running the metal detector. Three years ago when we took a bus the tour guide was British. So was Duncan, the bus driver. I have several pictures of Duncan.However when we got on the Queen Mary 2, the crew was mostly Polynesian. They are required to speak some English, but they are hard to communicate with anyway. The only other crew members we encountered were Slavs from places like Belarus. But needless to say the captain of the ship is always British. So are the officers of the ship. No Americans here!
Gary says there is a referendum on the EU coming up in Britain in the next couple of months. Cameron has announced it?
You are going to Kent and Bristol? That sounds interesting. Do you know people there? Or is it just a vacation?
I just found your blog on the EU Referendum. Do you mean that members of the government are taking different lines? Cameron says one thing, and they say something else? Have they set a date for the referendum? How do you think it will go? Will Britain leave the EU or stay?
I don't believe we've ever talked about climate change. I see that topic in your blog for today. I've always thought that way too much is being made of this. Climate change seems to be some new mantra or god that has been created and needs to be worshiped with all sorts of inconvenient measures such as the way they build cars these days. It's probably the reason I can't find a car that I want to buy because they are all getting smaller. I can't imagine how environmentalists ever developed a lobby. It doesn't make sense that the average person would care about it except when you get really basic about pollution for instance --- you know, things that they can see. If you see more storms, etc than you did 100 years ago it must be some sort of natural cycle which we have no control over and don't need to worry about. How do you suppose that mankind would be powerful enough to influence nature and the weather? It sounds supernatural.
"Any fool can see that the climate is changing" you say in your blog. But I haven't noticed anything myself observing weather conditions in the various places I have lived. Have you noticed anything specific? Where you live are there more rainstorms? More heat waves? I'd be curious to find out.
All this stuff about climate change reminds me of Al Gore and his book An Inconvenient Truth. Have you read that? But after what happened to Al Gore at least I don't hear about that book anymore. It used to be everywhere you looked including all the book stores and online.
I liked the ad on your website for Hitler's First Lady. It hits you right in the face and compels attention. You feel so curious that you have to read it. But again you should include an afterword with information about what your family told you.
At least one agent told me that she would be interested in Captive at the Berghof if the story was true but not interested if it wasn't true. I think this a strange point of view, but there you have it.
When I go on your website I notice you have commercials and ads that have nothing to do with you or your book. Why is this? Did you know they were there? I didn' t notice them the last time I visited your website.
You have a really good promotion for Downfall In Downing Street on your website. I pinned it on my Pinterest page. Also I thought that I would make it the subject of my blog tonight on my Facebook page and my website --- you know, another author who writes thrillers and historical thrillers.
We plan to start reading Downfall on Downing Street tonight at dinner. I'll keep you posted on a day by day basis as we make our journey through the novel on Kindle. You can count on two reviews.
Did you see the posts on my Facebook page, my blog on my website, and on my Pinterest Edward Ware Thrillers board?
What are your predictions for the New Year? Today we play our predictions game for the next year and score the predictions sheets from one year ago today. For instance, do you think Britain will leave the EU? That is going to be one of my questions.
Also you have to predict who is going to be the next US president. That's an obvious question. And that's also going to be one of my questions on the predictions sheet that I send by email to Gary and Kenny and to myself.
The only thing that I've ever found to be reliable when it comes to predictions is that nothing is ever as you expect.
When I put your novel up on my Facebook page along with a picture of the cover a number of people seemed to be reached. So it was a big success.
I can picture you jetting around England. You ought to have a feature on your website saying "today in London" or wherever. Believe it or not, I've seen this sort of thing. One romance writer in particular lives in New Zealand but goes to visit England, too. She posts where her locale is today so you know what time it is and when to send her email.
When is your latest book going to be finished? Do you know? Do you have a projected date? Working title? Book cover?
Have you taken down any of your Christmas decorations yet? We always take down the tree on New Year's Day and put away the ornaments. We still have outside lights to take down, though, as well as one train. But we have changed the tablecloth.
Any New Year’s Resolutions? Or don’t you do this sort of thing?
I did get to see a photo of your Christmas tree. It looked really lighted up and well-decorated.
Do you have any projects for the New Year besides your book? For instance we are planting a row of blue Italian cypress trees around the back perimeter of the property. We also discovered that the chain link fence along the back of property actually belongs to the elementary school. We didn't know that before.
How is your book coming? I haven't heard.
It seems as if cameras are so unreliable anymore it isn't funny. I told you what happened yesterday with the bobcat video.
Did you see the photos I posted yesterday on my Facebook page and on my blog?
The past couple of years they don’t seem to make as many cameras or camcorders as they used to. It’s either the very low end of the market or the very high end. The middle seems to be gutted by the iPhone. They must not think people are buying cameras.
You say why do I use a camera instead of just an iPhone? An iPhone is hard to get hold of and start shooting fast when you want to take a video. The cameras I've used can be operated if necessary with one hand including video. I certainly can't operate an iPhone with one hand. I don't know how long you can do a single take on an iPhone. But the mini dv camcorder with the tapes was good for long takes. It would operate for the full length of the battery. In a car I could do takes for 45 minutes or more when traveling. And if you could plug in, the sky would be the limit.
But the Leica pocket camera I've been using this year now is supposed to be sent into the shop again. In November it got sent the last time. It's still in warranty, but I'm not getting much use out of it.
Also the iPhone isn't made to be ergonomic as far as holding it to take photos and videos. It would be easy for it to slip out of your fingers.
