Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Avant la Chute, la Vanité

An update on Ambrose’s Euro-geddon from the mouth of the master himself.


This is where us stupid little Englanders said they would wind up – and that years ago. The choice boils down to the rock and the hard place. Jack (Delors) and his crony fellow travelers (plus latter-day useful idiots like Barroso and Van Rumply, Psychozy, Mitterand, Giscard d’Estaing and plenty more – mostly French), built a house of cards on no structural foundation whatsoever. Even the Spanish and Italian building codes are stronger than that. It was going to be a tribute to La Gloire Francaise and keep the Germans under French control for ever. How did that turn out, Jack? Yet again, the French bring Europe to its knees in their futile attempt to find a final fix for their deep-seated inferiority complex. It’s very hard being French – hauteur et doute de soi-même de mesure égale.

The bleating, bleeding Euro-hearts now say it’s all up to Frau Angela and Mario 2 at the ECB to fix the mess. Except she (Frau Merkel) doesn’t have the power, the tools, nor the necessary underpinning of constitutional legitimacy. You cannot just make this stuff up as you go along. Certainly not when you start with a democratic deficit of biblical proportions. That other useful Hungarian idiot, little Georgie Soros, says that Germany has three months to save the Euro (and the EU). Joschka Fischer – the famous German nihilist, anarchist, ex Foreign Minister and Cohn-Bendit apologist has raised Georgie’s bet to two weeks.

What an irony it is (for unreconstructed Thatcherites) that for all the wrong reasons old misery guts Gordon Brown, man of the manse of Kircaldy, Fife,  prevented little Tony Blair from achieving his heart’s desire – the UK in the Eurozone and Blair President of Europe. Narcissism and vainglory are very dangerous in soi-disant statesmen (see Napoleon). Who’d have predicted gilt yields would plumb the 300 year depths (even after years of QE ad infinitum) thanks to the Continental Cousins getting it so badly wrong.

Greece, Portugal and Ireland are now a side show. Two large and volatile Latin nations are on their knees begging for mercy. The quality of mercy is not strained. It falleth like the gentle dew from … Angela and her Bubank?


It can’t be good if Ambrose is writing twice on a Sunday. He reports that Obama, Hollande, and Mario 1 called the Ice Queen in Berlin to pressure her into … what? Whatever it was – Eurobonds, bank bail-outs, fiscal union - she denied them thrice. They just don’t gettit. Cyprus is ready to fold. The Iceland of the east (Club) Med. The neo-Ottomams in Byzantium are licking their Turkish delight. Anything to take their minds off the Syrians stinking up the neighborhood.


Here’s a story that’s hard to credit. Little neo-Napoleon, Nico Psychozy after three weeks locked up with Carla and the baby in one of King Muhammad’s sumptuous palaces, is bored out of his post-presidential tree. If he’s bored, imagine how Carla feels. This – like the Euro – cannot end well.

Booker tells us just how badly.


At least Bootle sees a silver lining from the coming storm.


There is now, in my view, only one rational course of action (or could it be a cause of action)?  The Germans and their buddies (Dutch & Finns – Austrians & Luxemburgers) must leave the Euro and adopt the Deuro. It will be painful for their banks and exporters. Resign from the ECB Board and invite it to leave Frankfurt-am-Main for more clement and hospitable Club-Med climes. Maybe Paris, maybe Brussels – let Hollande and Van Rumply fight over that poisoned chalice. They can tell the Greeks they’re off the hook, so they can vote nice. Mario 1 and Mariano can print all the Euro’s they want to bail their own banks. The Deuro will quickly be worth two Euro’s, heading for four in a year or two, ten within ten. The Ottomans will take the rest of Cyprus, Malta will ask to become a British protectorate again and Ireland will beg to rejoin the Sterling area. All will be well. See, that was easy.

London will remain closed tomorrow nursing its Diamond Jubilee hangover and mopping up. Markets may still head for the basement. Vivent les Anglo-Saxons.

No comments:

Post a Comment