New Deal Euro.
The Moody's downgrade of Spanish debt is another and logical blow to the delusion of the dreary euro. I learn from Norman Stone's sweeping and passionate new "The Atlantic and Its Enemies," re the history of the Cold War, that the Americans first dreamed up the euro in 1948 during the first waves of the George Marshall Plan. Blame it on the American tyros like John Kenneth Galbraith and the Truman-created Economic Co-Operation Administration -- another concoction of the New Dealers who lived on into the 1970s. The euro is a Cold War tool, left over from the guilt and guile of post-War victors and their lunatic water-boys -- and it is all the more impotent for its fatherless origins. Will the Germans (the ants) continue to bolster the grasshoppers (Greeks, Spanish, British, Americans)?
London Whispers.
At the moment of the Spanish downgrade, with all eyes on Lisbon and Dublin downgrades next, London wobbles with the sudden and tawdry departure of George Osborne's swanky deputy, David Laws, who is unhorsed by a love nest. The triteness of it adds flavor to the mess expected on Monday 31 when the euro resumes its decline toward par with the dollar. In sum, the Europeans are behaving as ruthlessly vainly and pettily as ever, a tribute to the fact that the 27 countries of the EU lack an identity, a constitution, a coherent point of view. The Europeans expect America to ride to the rescue a fourth time in a century, using the IMF and World Bank as surrogates.
Battle of Britain.
The ouija board says that May was an unusually sorry month, down nearly 8%, the worst May since 1940, the year of the Battle of Britain and the rise of the Churchill Legend, fighting the Blitz from the underground Cabinet room (right). The mood for June 2010 begins grim-eyed, with a sagging euro, a fresh yet mistake-ridden government in London, and troubles aplenty in Berlin. Then there are the BP shadow in the Gulf and the sudden fragility at the White House. Time for the curtain to rise at the Opera:
ANTONY:
"Blood and destruction shall be so in use
And dreadful objects so familiar
That mothers shall but smile when they behold
Their infants quarter'd with the hands of war;
All pity choked with custom of fell deeds:
And Caesar's spirit, ranging for revenge,
With Ate by his side come hot from hell,
Shall in these confines with a monarch's voice
Cry 'Havoc,' and let slip the dogs of war;
That this foul deed shall smell above the earth
With carrion men, groaning for burial."
Britain is not part of the Eurozone, and is still susceptible to arbitrage attacks, like George Soros did a few years back. UK left the Euro Rate mechanism, an impossible machine to keep afloat.
Why did the Euro Central Bank Guarantee all the European debt? The Federal Reserve does not guarantee the debt of California or NJ. US states allow more flexibility on economic debt decisions, unless deemed in the national interest. Technically US states cannot default, but Cities and towns can.
The Eurodollar will continue as a currency of exchange among the community for easy financial transactions, and will continue. THe experiment continues....
Last night the Beeb had a discussion about UK/EU social programmes, the commentators realize they are too lavish, but they proposed no solutions. US welfare reform was mentioned as a model.
It is perhaps unfair to blame the Marshall Plan, the Euro, the Cold War or anything else for today’s geo-political troubles. Everything that America has ever built and nourished over the years wobbles – from Europe to the Middle, near and Far East. For too long now, we’ve let everything coast. We’ve taken our eye off the ball; we’re loosing our grip domestically as well as internationally. God help those who’ve been depending on us; at the very least, to make some noise up in the peanut gallery. Americas has exited the stadium.
It’s sad, really; for what will take its place will not be America-like; will not be freedom, liberty, opportunity, fairness and the human right to dignity. The veneer of civilized behavior will be painted over in blood red: brutality, oppression, and dull endurance.
All those on the Upper East Side who have been hankering for it will be the first to feel it – the blade of the thieving knife; the degradation – their sad sack bones cast into dungeons to rot. “Are we there yet?”
“Hush, hush, Virginia! Can’t you see there’s traffic? Our new driver (What was his name again? I can never remember the names of these damn foreigners) is doing the best he can. – And yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus."
http://peterkoelliker.blogspot.com/
T'was not 'the Americans', t'was 'we Americans' who conceived the Euro, if in fact we did. I dislike 'the Americans' when the expression is used by one of us Americans.
In a fit of self correction, it has occurred to me that 'we Americans' is also wrong, because I myself had nothing to do with the invention of the Euro. I believe that 'the Americans' is proper usage for non-Americans, whereas 'Americans' is the proper usage for Americans. Language matter.