A bottomless pit for the european north

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.

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.

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:

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...

No wonder Japan has had a lost decade

Plowing thorugh posts on Zero Hedge, my eye alights on a telling phrase in this one:

Bruce Kovner expressed the idea more eloquently when he said, “I have the ability to imagine configurations of the world different from today and really believe it can happen. I can imagine...that the dollar can fall to 100 yen”. I am sure you are nodding in agreement, except Bruce was saying this when the USDJPY was well over 200, not today's rate of 80!

I'm used to thinking of quantitative easing — not the "official" kind that we've had twice so far in the U.S., but the unofficial, continuous overproduction of money throughout the financial system, resulting in huge oceans of dollars washing up on foreign shores — as largely an attempt to inflate away debts (and future debts too, of course), but that phrase puts it in context. Wikipedia tells us more: from 239 yen/dollar in 1985 to just under 80 today, that represents an enormous currency strengthening for Japanese exporters vis-à-vis their principal export market.

I've been mentally dismissing rumours that the U.S. is attempting to do the same thing to the renminbi, but perhaps they are.

Health fascism

It's quite common, at least on the blogs that I read, to hear campaigners against smoking, drinking and overeating decried as "fascists". One might have thought that this was just a little bit of name calling. Apparently not.

According to Proctor:

Nazi Germany was ... decades ahead of other countries in promoting health reforms that we today regard as progressive and socially responsible... the Nazis conducted the most aggressive antismoking campaign in modern history... Hitler's government passed a wide range of public health measures, including restrictions on asbestos, radiation, pesticides, and food dyes. Nazi health officials introduced strict occupational health and safety standards, and promoted such foods as whole-grain bread and soybeans. These policies went hand in hand with health propaganda that, for example, idealized the Führer's body and his nonsmoking, vegetarian lifestyle.

Ah yes, a non-smoking vegetarian. Now it all makes sense.

Today's "wow!" moment...

Comparing absolute numbers, Israel — a country of just 7.1 million people — attracted close to $2 billion [in 2008] in venture capital, as much as flowed to the UK, Germany and France combined. (…) In addition to boasting the highest density of start-ups in the world (a total of 3,850, one for every 1,844 Israelis), more Israeli companies are listed on the Nasdaq than all companies from the entire European continent.

From Start-up Nation, the story of Israel economic Miracle, hat tip Frédéric Filloux.

Depressing economic illiteracy on the left

Just been reading an article on the BBC website about how saying "no" to austerity is gaining ground in Europe. The comments really have to be seen to be believed, with most people blaming corruption, capitalism, "the market" and so on for the debt overhang. Once commenter rejoices that people are starting to tell their politicians to chose growth rather than choose austerity. Really? Do they think that politicians come into work and say "What shall it be then, growth or austerity? Shall we all earn more and consume more or shall we pay off debts and earn less? -- I know, let's choose austerity! -- OK then, austerity it is." The whole mindset on the left is completely infantile.

Politicians haven't "chosen" austerity at all, they've borrowed for absolutely as long as they've been able to, in order to finance consumption which they euphemistically rename "investment in people", and now that they can't borrow -- either at liveable rates of interest or, in some cases, at all -- the path of austerity is forced upon them. At this point, of course, leftists always decry the evil influence of "moneylenders" (i.e., investors, pension funds, etc.), saying that, of course the country could achieve growth "if only" the moneylenders would do what they are supposed to do and, well, just keep on lending us money. That way it becomes somebody else's fault if we can't do what we want to because we haven't got the money: in the case of the international markets, it's "moneylenders", in the case of the Eurozone, it's Germany. What a convenient excuse!

Let me try to paraphrase the arguments that are being made:

"Life on Earth is a bit grimy and hard work, so we've decided to decamp en masse and go to live in Heaven instead.

"The window's open, let's all jump out together and zoom off up to Heaven then.

"Oh noes! Something is wrong! We seem to be going down, not up!

"This is unfortunate and completely unforeseen. If we continue to go down, as we are now, at an ever increasing pace, innocent people could get hurt, and it will all be the fault of the force of gravity. It really would be so much more convenient if only we could float upwards instead, but this cursed force of gravity won't let us."

Combine this with the natural tendency on the left to see agency where there is only the working out of cause and effect, and you have the essence of the "international financiers won't let us be free" theory so ably displayed by Occupy Wall St. and its clones.