Cheers have been raised for the new Eurozone banking regulation authority which was apparently agreed at the latest eurozone meeting in the early hours of this morning. I'm not so sure.
Certain questions have to be answered: who will grant banking licenses, the authority or national bodies? Common sense says that if you have a supranational regulator then that must be the body that issues banking licenses, but this is Europe we are talking about, and common sense plays no part here. Also, will regulations (and licences!) be Europe wide, or merely country wide as at present (albeit set by an international body)? There would always be cases where policies set Europe wide that suited the majority of countries wouldn't suit a minority, and if the new regulator's regulations meant that Italian banks couldn't stuff themselves with junk Italian sovereign debt when the Italian prime minister wanted them to, then I suspect underhand means might end up being employed.
My biggest worry is that the solvent northern countries may simply have painted themselves into a very sticky corner. Germany may think that it will be able to control the new authority, as the biggest creditor nation, but I don't think that any such control can last. Prepare for a new-found commitment to democratic accountability on the part of Italy, Greece, Portugal and France. The northern countries will find that while their financial reserves have become beholden to the new regulator, the new regulator will end up being dominated by the spendthrifts in the south.
Friday 29 June 2012
Sunday 17 June 2012
More on Hitler's vegetarianism
Drawing together the threads of the notion of "food fascism" I recently commented on Hitler's vegetarianism. Well it turns out that there may be more to that than a cheap joke: Wholesome Foods and Wholesome Morals? Organic Foods Reduce Prosocial Behavior and Harshen Moral Judgments. This may also apply to those who take against an occasional post-prandial brandy and fine cigar.
Sunday 3 June 2012
The Marseillaise
Reading an article somewhere about how expat French people living in northern Europe (which, for this purpose, is taken as including Ireland and the UK) will soon have their own MP, I realise that I don't actually know the words of the Marseillaise !
Off to YouTube then, to watch a few recordings, and off to Wikipedia for the lyrics. And — oh my ! — what a bloodthirsty piece ! I'll just include the first verse and the chorus here so you can see:
So the soldiers of the tyrant's armies are "in our faces, slitting our sons' and our wives' throats". You can certainly hear the full-on hatred for the ancien regime there. [There's an accessible sample of the sort of things that went on under the ancien regime in the early parts of Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities: the hatred seems to have been very well deserved.]
I couldn't help comparing that amazing and wonderful, if also rather terrifying chorus to our own dear national anthem: "To arms, citizens! Form battalions! March! March and soak our fields with [their] guilty blood" ("guilty" is my own rather free translation of "impur"). No wonder the Parisian crowd seems able to come out whenever it wants to, if they're learning that in school, and no wonder French governments fall when it does. I can't imagine that the remnants of French aristocracy sing along to the Marseillaise quite as easily as Lady Whatnot might to God Save the Queen.
Speaking of which, I was of course singing along to YouTube, especially this rather ferocious rendition, when I realised that it was two o'clock in the morning of the weekend of the Queen's Jubilee — perhaps not quite the thing. I do hope my repeated clicks on this revolutionary piece haven't inscribed my name on the wrong hard disk somewhere, en secret...
Off to YouTube then, to watch a few recordings, and off to Wikipedia for the lyrics. And — oh my ! — what a bloodthirsty piece ! I'll just include the first verse and the chorus here so you can see:
Allons enfants de la Patrie, Le jour de gloire est arrivé ! Contre nous de la tyrannie, L'étendard sanglant est levé, (bis) Entendez-vous dans les campagnes Mugir ces féroces soldats ? Ils viennent jusque dans vos bras Egorger vos fils, vos compagnes ! Aux armes, citoyens, Formez vos bataillons, Marchons, marchons ! Qu'un sang impur Abreuve nos sillons !
So the soldiers of the tyrant's armies are "in our faces, slitting our sons' and our wives' throats". You can certainly hear the full-on hatred for the ancien regime there. [There's an accessible sample of the sort of things that went on under the ancien regime in the early parts of Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities: the hatred seems to have been very well deserved.]
I couldn't help comparing that amazing and wonderful, if also rather terrifying chorus to our own dear national anthem: "To arms, citizens! Form battalions! March! March and soak our fields with [their] guilty blood" ("guilty" is my own rather free translation of "impur"). No wonder the Parisian crowd seems able to come out whenever it wants to, if they're learning that in school, and no wonder French governments fall when it does. I can't imagine that the remnants of French aristocracy sing along to the Marseillaise quite as easily as Lady Whatnot might to God Save the Queen.
Speaking of which, I was of course singing along to YouTube, especially this rather ferocious rendition, when I realised that it was two o'clock in the morning of the weekend of the Queen's Jubilee — perhaps not quite the thing. I do hope my repeated clicks on this revolutionary piece haven't inscribed my name on the wrong hard disk somewhere, en secret...
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