What's a body to believe these days? Take the euro for starters - oh, go on, please, take it and, er, bin it, will you? To weigh up that problem on this hand, and then on that hand, and then on the other hand, you need as many hands as that Indian goddess with eight arms! Today I read Mr. Chriss Street at The American Thinker who assures me that that thrilling blonde lady who runs the French National Front party is poised to win big, and he means BIG, at the European election next year - because even the French are now sick of the whole European racket. According to Mr. Street, the lady in question has made advances - not that sort, do behave! - to several other anti-EU parties in Europe, including our very own, dearly beloved UKIP, so that they can stand on an agreed platform with the very real possibility that for the first time the European parliament will be controlled by anti-EU parties.
So far so good but then I turn to Mr. Simon Nixon at the WSJ and he has some amazing - well, actually, totally gobsmacking is more like it - news to the effect that the Greek electorate remains 69% in favour(!!!) of the euro. How, I ask myself, has the land of Plato and Socrates sunk to such a level of knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing stupidity? Of course, they're after more money from Brussels so even though the current prime minister ran on a rabid campaign against the EU anti-bail out conditions he is going to make 'nicely-nicely' with the 'Kommisars'.
Meanwhile, over at The Telegraph, Ambrose E-P, warns that southern Europe is poised on the cliff-edge, not because the euro currency is crap but because it is too damn strong!
In China’s case, it is deliberately driving down the yuan to capture export
share. You could say China is exporting excess manufacturing capacity to Europe,
or, in plain talk, exporting unemployment.
This is why the euro has long been too strong for its own good. It surged a further 9 per cent against the dollar from June to early October, before hitting the wall this week. It has risen 28 per cent against the Japanese yen in a year. This is a bizarre state of affairs for a currency bloc struggling out of
recession. Weak prospects normally mean a weak currency, but there is nothing
normal about Europe’s monetary union. [My emphasis]
The euro exchange rate is far too high for two-thirds of the euro states, a
key reason why unemployment hit an all-time peak of 12.2 per cent in September.
It is pushing Europe’s crisis states into Thirties-style deflation, making it
almost impossible for Italy, Spain and Portugal to dig their way out of debt.
And it's not just those crafty Chinese who are working their dastardly tricks on the poor Europeans, no, their, er, strongest ally, the 'good ol' US of A' has watched benignly as the dollar has dropped like a lead nickel! And everyone else, including us Brits, have joined in:
The US Federal Reserve and the Bank of England have nudged down their currencies by printing money. The Bank of Japan has carried out a devaluation putsch. The Swiss have trumped them all, printing à outrance to cap the franc.
Ambrose E-P quotes a pro-European Frenchman:
The north-south split has many causes. Germany sells machines and prestige
cars with a fat profit margin. “Club Med” (the south) competes lower down,
against China. Yet it is also because Germany screwed down wages in the early
years of EMU, gaining 25 per cent in competitiveness against its peers. How this
happened is an old story. But the consequences are toxic, so toxic that François
Heisbourg, French head of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, is
calling for the euro to be “put to sleep” in order to save the European project.
“We must face the reality that the EU itself is now threatened by the euro,” he
said.
Mr Heisbourg is pro-Europe. His point is that conflicting narratives of the
crisis are emerging, pitting creditor and deficit states against each other. He
compares them to the black legends after the First World War, when twisted views fed an ideological backlash, and fears that it will end in “a nervous breakdown and an uncontrolled disintegration of the euro”.
At this somewhat nervous point I am going to make a prediction - who sniggered? - and I advise you all to take note! I reckon that next May the following will occur:
a: The euro currency will fail.
b: The European Union will disintegrate.
c: Greece will fall into bloody civil war.
f: There will be months of confusion and anarchy in which communications and travel through Europe will breakdown.
What, you might ask, is the evidential basis for this gloomy prognostication? Simple, I am booked to go on holiday to Rhodes next May! Need I say more?
