http://silverdoctors.com/nigel-farage-like-communism-eu-has-gone-badly-wrong/#more-26543
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/13/2013 20:32 -0400
This is fresh on the heels of an announcement last week that former cabinet minister Michael Portillo and Lord Lawson call for Britain to leave the EU. Lawson was Thatcher's longest-serving chancellor.
These wounds are self-inflicted. No one believes Cameron has any intention of holding a referendum as promised, because no one can possibly believe one of Cameron's pre-requirements for the referendum.
Recall that Cameron pledged to hold a referendum after he is re-elected. He may not survive that vote. But even if he does, his next condition on holding a referendum was renegotiation of the treaty with the rest of Europe.
There is virtually no chance of that happening, at least along the lines of Cameron's pledge. So why the promises?
Clearly, Cameron would rather lie about the referendum and take the punishment than tell the truth. Hopefully a full-scale cabinet revolt and a full-scale revolt by the party will knock some sense into him before he loses the election.
Mike "Mish" Shedlock
Transcript of Farage’s full speech:
Well, happy Schuman Day, or Europe Day, as you now call it, although I thought the celebrations were rather muted. The only bit of real passion we had was Mr Schulz slagging off the English but that now appears to be the sort of popular sport in this parliament.
Well, happy Schuman Day, or Europe Day, as you now call it, although I thought the celebrations were rather muted. The only bit of real passion we had was Mr Schulz slagging off the English but that now appears to be the sort of popular sport in this parliament.
And when people stand up and talk about the great success that the EU has been I’m not sure that anybody saying it really believes it themselves anymore. I think we are celebrating the wrong day.
We shouldn’t be celebrating the 9th of May, we should be celebrating the 8th of May, Victory in Europe Day. We should celebrate the last time the Germans tried to smash the continent and they foundered and at least half the continent got its democracy back.
What we are celebrating on the 9th of May is another attempt through different means, to smash democracy across Europe. I don’t doubt for a minute that Jean Monnet was well intentioned from the start. He thought that if you abolish nation states you would stop there ever being another war. He didn’t at the time of course have the benefit of seeing that theory as it played out in Yugoslavia.
But like Communism, this has all gone badly wrong. And the EU Titanic has now hit the iceberg. It is a European Union of economic failure, of mass unemployment, of low growth, but worst of all, it’s an EU with the economic prison of the Euro. And this now poses huge dangers to the continent. We face the prospect of mass civil unrest possibly even revolution in some countries that are being driven into total and utter desperation. But there is perhaps an opportunity. There is perhaps some good news.
That now a democratic rebellion has begun, and it began in Finland last year, with the True Finns getting nearly 20% of the vote. And we’re seeing in country after country new political movements on the right and the left making big scores.
But that may not all be good news. Because in Greece what we saw, last Sunday, was rather reminiscent of the German election of 1932. We saw the status quo centre collapse the extremes of right and left rise. You know this project could even cause the rebirth of national socialism in Europe. We are headed the wrong way. We must break up the Euro zone. We must set those Mediterranean countries free. We must try to build a Europe, I want a Europe – but a Europe based on trade. A Europe based on co-operation. A Europe based on us sitting around the table and agreeing sensible rules on crime and the environment. We can do all of those things. But we cannot do it if we are asked to rally behind that flag. I owe no allegiance to that flag and nor do most of the people in Europe either!
Just Say Non To The New "Sick Man Of Europe" - Support For EU Plunges In France And Most European Countries
- Bond
- Czech
- European Union
- France
- Germany
- Greece
- Gross Domestic Product
- Italy
- Monetary Policy
- Nicolas Sarkozy
- Poland
- Portugal
- Reality
- Recession
- Sovereigns
- Unemployment
- Unification
In some surprising news, and quite contrary to what its record low bond yields would indicate (for a key reason for said artificial demand for French, see The Greater Fool) today the Pew Research center released results from a poll of 7646 EU citizens in March 2013, showing that the new sick man of Europe is Europe itself, or rather the great unification project itself: the European Union.
The sick man label – attributed originally to Russian Czar Nicholas I in his description of the Ottoman Empire in the mid-19th century – has more recently been applied at different times over the past decade and a half to Germany, Italy, Portugal, Greece and France. But this fascination with the crisis country of the moment has masked a broader phenomenon: the erosion of Europeans’ faith in the animating principles that have driven so much of what they have accomplished internally.The European Union is the new sick man of Europe. The effort over the past half century to create a more united Europe is now the principal casualty of the euro crisis.The European project now stands in disrepute across much of Europe.
The bolded sections also confirm why the European oligarchic bureaucracy is increasingly authoritarian, and desperate to usurp all democratic principles and popular power, well aware that if left to the "demos", Europe - which is what the common person increasingly blames their economic troubles on - would not last one more day.
Perhaps most surprisingly, nowhere is this more evident than in France itself - the country where the idea of a European Union germinated in the first place - and where the decline in support for the EU has been the greatest in the past year, with just 22% responding affirmatively to the question whether 'economic integration strengthened the economy', down from 36% a year ago, and the biggest drop of all surveyedEU member states.
It only goes downhill from there for France.
No European country is becoming more dispirited and disillusioned faster than France. In just the past year, the public mood has soured dramatically across the board. The French are negative about the economy, with 91% saying it is doing badly, up 10 percentage points since 2012. They are negative about their leadership: 67% think President Francois Hollande is doing a lousy job handling the challenges posed by the economic crisis, a criticism of the president that is 24 points worse than that of his predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy. The French are also beginning to doubt their commitment to the European project, with 77% believing European economic integration has made things worse for France, an increase of 14 points since last year. And 58% now have a bad impression of the European Union as an institution, up 18 points from 2012.
So much for the European "core" - while Germany is doing better, or at least not as bad, French public mood is now on par with the PIIGS:
Even more dramatically, French attitudes have sharply diverged from German public opinion on a range of issues since the beginning of the euro crisis. Differences in opinion across the Rhine have long existed. But the French public mood is now looking less like that in Germany and more like that in the southern peripheral nations of Spain, Italy and Greece.Positive assessment of the economy in France have fallen by more than half since before the crisis and is now comparable to that in the south. The French share similar worries about inflation and unemployment with the Spanish, the Italians and the Greeks at levels of concern not held by the Germans. Only the Greeks and Italians have less belief in the benefits of economic union than do the French. The French now have less faith in the European Union as an institution than do the Italians or the Spanish. And the French, like their southern European compatriots, have lost confidence in their elected leader.
In France it is so bad, that it's "optimism" (of 14%) is higher only than that of Greece, where youth unemployment just crossed above 60%:
European publics are generally only slightly more upbeat about their nation’s economic prospects over the next 12 months than they are about the current state of their economy. Just 11% of the French and 14% of the Greeks expect the economic situation in their country to improve. Optimism about the future of the economy is largely unchanged compared with sentiment held last year, although it has declined 11 points in France and 10 points in Britain.A majority of the Greeks (64%) and the French (61%) and a plurality of the Italians (48%) and Spanish (47%) actually expect things to get worse. About half of Poles (51%), Germans (49%) and Czechs (47%) and four-in-ten British (40%) see economic conditions remaining the same over the next year. But in the Czech Republic and Britain, no change means continued economic stagnation. The Czech economy contracted by -1.3% in 2012 and Britain’s grew by an anemic 0.3%.
Since like everything else, the European experiment is also a zero sum game, Germany's gain is everyone else's loss:
Given the overall level of dissatisfaction across Europe, there is little difference in attitudes among demographic groups on their country’s direction, with some exceptions. Young German adults, those aged 18 to 29, and Germans with a college degree are more likely to be satisfied than people 50 years of age and older or the less educated. The same holds true for young people and the better educated in France, the Czech Republic and Britain.The debilitating effect on the public psyche of the prolonged euro crisis is evident in the erosion of satisfaction in some but not all countries. Since 2007, before the euro crisis began, national contentment is down 46 percentage points in Spain, 13 points in Italy and 7 points in the Czech Republic. But in Germany (+24 points) and Poland (+7), people are feeling better about the state of their nation.Only in Germany, where the economy grew a modest 0.7% in 2012, yet faster than the overall European Union average of -0.3%, does most (75%) of the population think the economy is doing well. This represents a significant improvement over sentiment in 2009, when only 28% saw economic conditions in a good light, despite the fact that the German economy was growing at 3.3% at the time.
Whereas Merkel still has the adoration of the Germans, every other European leader is equally loathed anywhere one goes in Europe:
Europeans are losing faith in the capacity of their own national leaders to cope with the economy’s woes. In most countries surveyed, fewer people today than a year ago think their national executive is doing a good job dealing with the euro crisis. This includes just 25% of the public in Italy, where the sitting Prime Minister Mario Monti was voted out while this survey was being conducted. Even the Germans, who overwhelmingly back their Chancellor Angela Merkel, are slightly more judgmental of her handling of Europe’s economic challenges than they were last year. And Merkel faces the voters in an election in September 2013.Nevertheless, Merkel remains the most popular leader in Europe, by a wide margin. She enjoys majority approval for her handling of the European economic crisis in five of the eight nations surveyed. But in Greece (88%) and Spain (57%), majorities now say she has done a bad job, as do half (50%) of those surveyed in Italy.
But while loathing of the present is a given (and can be easily understood when one looks at such trivial indicators as the unemployment rate of most non-core countries), it is the gloom about the future that is the novel development:
Most Europeans are almost as gloomy about the future. Just 11% of the French, 14% of the Greeks and Poles, and 15% of the Czechs think that their national economic situation will improve over the next 12 months.A median of 78% in the eight countries surveyed say a lack of jobs is a very big problem in their country. And a median of 71% cite the public debt. Except in Germany, overwhelming majorities in many countries say unemployment, the public debt, rising prices and the gap between the rich and the poor are very important problems. Unemployment is the number one worry in seven of the eight countries. Inequality is the principle concern in Germany.Apprehension about economic mobility and inequality is also widespread. Across the eight nations polled, a median of 66%, including 90% of the French, think children today will be worse off financially than their parents when they grow up. A median of 77% believe that the economic system generally favors the wealthy. This includes 95% of the Greeks, 89% of the Spanish and 86% of the Italians. A median of 60% think the gap between the rich and the poor is a very big problem; that sentiment is felt by 84% of the Greeks and 75% of both the Italians and the Spanish. And a median of 85% say such inequality has increased in the past five years, a concern particularly prevalent among the Spanish (90%).Absolute economic deprivation has long been less of an issue in Europe than in some other countries, thanks to the relatively robust European social safety net. But in the wake of economic hard times, deprivation in France is on the rise, where roughly one-in-five say they could not afford food, health care or clothing at some point in the past year.
One can just imagine what happens when first Europeans (and the Americans) realize that the "robust social safety net" is the biggest Ponzi scheme of all.
What is most paradoxical, is that despite their largely unconditional and widespread revulsion of their economic reality, virtually no Europeans can grasp that the root of all their problems is the joint currency, which means the only way to solve imbalances is through internal devaluation (read collapsing wages and soaring unemployment). So engrained is the mythology of the Euro, that support for the EUR is nearly strong as it has always been, with the ratio of those supporting the common currency surpassing the skeptics by a ratio anywhere between 2 and 3 to 1. Still, the country which has expressed the biggest eagerness to return to its own currency is France. Perhaps there is some hope after all.
Despite rising disillusionment with the European project, the euro, the common currency for 17 of the 27 European Union members, remains in public favor. More than six-in-ten people want to keep the euro as their currency in Greece (69%), Spain (67%), Germany (66%), Italy (64%) and France (63%). And support for the euro has actually increased in Italy and Spain since last year.
As expected, when it comes to determining government priorities, the bulk of the nations put unemployment far at the top, followed by levels of public debt (and with the BOJ and Fed assisting with the endless carry bid, what is there to worry about?), the gap between the rich and poo, and finally inflation (again, courtesy of the central planners controlling the long end of the bond curve and being buyers of first, last and only indirect resort of inflationary indicators like 30 Year paper).
The euro crisis has created a laundry list of economic concerns, but Europeans generally agree on which challenge they want their government to tackle first: jobs, jobs, jobs. In seven of eight nations, publics prefer that their governments act first on unemployment. About two-thirds of the Spanish (72%), the Italians (64%) and the Czechs (64%) say the most important issue to address is the lack of employment opportunities. Roughly half of the Greeks (52%) and the French (51%) and nearly half of the British (46%) agree.Public debt intensely concerns more than half the population in seven of the eight countries surveyed. But those same people do not see it as a governmental priority. About one-in-five in Britain (22%), Germany (21%) and France (20%) wants their government to first cut the debt. Only 9% of Italians say debt reduction should be the priority, despite the fact that Italy’s debt is 127% of GDP.Despite the public’s profound concern about inequality, in most countries it is a lesser priority for governmental action. Only in Germany does a plurality (42%) believe that the gap between the rich and the poor is the economic problem the government should address first.For all the angst in financial circles about the possibility of asset bubbles and inflation as the result of loose monetary policy, European publics place a low priority on governmental initiatives to curb inflation. A median of only 9% think rising prices is the first issue their governments should address.
And then, on to the very sensitive topic of austerity. Here is how the cards lie:
In the past year, an ever more visible and vocal public policy debate has emerged in Europe over the right course of action to pull the European Union out of its double-dip recession. Fiscal conservatives advocate even greater efforts to rein in spending to reduce government indebtedness. Others argue that budgetary rectitude will have to wait, that more spending is needed now to jump-start economies stuck in neutral.While policy makers and pundits debate, European publics have already made up their minds. When faced with the stark choice of reducing government debt or pump priming, most Europeans clearly prefer belt-tightening as the means of climbing out of their economic hole.People’s intense worry about jobs and their strong desire to see government take action to increase employment does not translate into support for more government spending to stimulate the economy. A median of just 29% across Europe want to see increased public outlays as a means of solving their country’s economic problems. Only in Greece (56%) does a majority advocate more spending. In France, which in 2012 elected a socialist government, just 18% back a Keynesian solution to their woes.About half or more of the population in six of the eight European countries surveyed says that the best way to solve their economic problems is for government to cut public spending to reduce the public debt.Cutting government debt has particularly strong backing in France (81%), followed by Germany (67%) and Spain (67%), despite the fact that these three countries have had significantly different experiences with belt tightening. The French and Germans have yet to experience major austerity. In 2012, government expenditures still grew by 1.4% in France and Germany, compared with a decline of 3.7% in Spain.Notably, it is older people, those age 50 and above, who prefer action on the debt in France. But it is younger people, those aged 18 to 29, in Poland and the Czech Republic who are deficit hawks. And it is people without a college education in Britain, France, Germany and Spain who are more concerned about public debt than their better educated peers.
There is much, much more in the full Pew study, but we will leave it off with what has always been the weakest link of Europe, and why a true union, fiscal, debt or monetary, can never be achieved: too much internal disharmony, prejudice, and legacy conflicts, manifested best of all, and always, via the internal European stereotypes between the different sovereigns:
The prominent role Germans have played in Europe’s response to the euro crisis has evoked decidedly mixed emotions from their fellow Europeans. In every country except Greece, people consider Germans the most trustworthy. At the same time, in six of the eight nations surveyed, people see the Germans as the least compassionate. And in five of the eight, they are considered the most arrogant. In the wake of the strict austerity measures imposed in Greece, Greek enmity toward the Germans knows little bound. Greeks consider the Germans to be the least trustworthy, the most arrogant and the least compassionate. But the Greeks themselves do not fare that well. They are considered the least trustworthy by the French, the Germans and the Czechs.
Good luck with ever turning this sinking ship around.
Tory revolt ?
Monday, May 13, 2013 12:33 PM
Cameron Faces Cabinet Crisis of His Own Making; Purposely Self-Inflicted Wounds
Over the weekend, the UK Secretary of Defence and the Education Minister caused a stir when they publicly stated on Sunday they would vote to leave the European Union if a referendum were to be held now.
Cabinet Crisis Erupts
The Guardian reports David Cameron faces EU cabinet crisis as ministers break ranks.
Cabinet Crisis Erupts
The Guardian reports David Cameron faces EU cabinet crisis as ministers break ranks.
David Cameron is struggling to maintain Tory discipline over Europe after cabinet loyalists Michael Gove and Philip Hammond said on Sunday they would vote to leave the European Union if a referendum were to be held now.
Gove, the education minister, confirmed for the first time that he believes that leaving the EU would have "certain advantages", while Hammond, the defence secretary, later said he too would vote to leave if he was asked to endorse the EU "exactly as it is today".
This is fresh on the heels of an announcement last week that former cabinet minister Michael Portillo and Lord Lawson call for Britain to leave the EU. Lawson was Thatcher's longest-serving chancellor.
David Cameron faced growing Tory pressure on Europe last night when the former cabinet minister Michael Portillo threw his weight behind the call by Lord Lawson for Britain to leave the EU.Purposely Self-Inflicted Wounds
As Boris Johnson entered the fray, by saying that Britain should be prepared to quit if it fails to secure better membership terms, Portillo said he "fervently" hopes the British people have the "guts" to vote no.
The intervention by a second Tory grandee came as Charles Moore, Margaret Thatcher's official biographer, revealed that the late prime minister came to believe after she left office that Britain should quit the EU. Writing in this week's issue of the Spectator, Moore says that Thatcher kept her views private after she was advised that her views would push her to "the fringes of public life".
Cameron pledged in his speech on the EU in January that he would hold a referendum by 2017 after negotiating a series of reforms to the EU with fellow European leaders.
But the former defence secretary writes: "I have not been impressed by Mr Cameron's pledge. Given his party's electoral prospects, I doubt if he expects to have to deliver on it. But in any case, he seems to have decided already that Britain should stay in."
These wounds are self-inflicted. No one believes Cameron has any intention of holding a referendum as promised, because no one can possibly believe one of Cameron's pre-requirements for the referendum.
Recall that Cameron pledged to hold a referendum after he is re-elected. He may not survive that vote. But even if he does, his next condition on holding a referendum was renegotiation of the treaty with the rest of Europe.
There is virtually no chance of that happening, at least along the lines of Cameron's pledge. So why the promises?
Clearly, Cameron would rather lie about the referendum and take the punishment than tell the truth. Hopefully a full-scale cabinet revolt and a full-scale revolt by the party will knock some sense into him before he loses the election.
Mike "Mish" Shedlock
and.....
The Aftermath of the UKIP Victory
David Cameron finds it ever more difficult to keep his own party in line with respect to the EU. The divisions even extend into his own cabinet. It wouldn't be too surprising if the Tories one day actually split up over the issue. Readers may be aware that back in 1990, Margaret Thatcher was stabbed in the back by the pro-EU wing of the Tory party over her skeptical stance vis-a-vis the EU. We guess that would be unthinkable today. Her former colleague Lord Tebbit recently noted wistfully that he wishes that he and Thatcher had cloned themselves.
UKIP's excellent showing in local elections has galvanized the euro-skeptic wing of the conservatives, as they rightly fear that they stand to lose even more electoral support prior to the next parliamentary election in two years time.
“A senior British minister said on Sunday he would support an exit from the European Union if there were a vote on the issue, as Prime Minister David Cameron faces a revolt over Europe from lawmakers in his own party.Up to 100 euro-skeptic Conservative members of parliament are expected to back an amendment this week criticizing the legislative plans unveiled by the coalition government last Wednesday because they did not include a bill for a referendum on Britain's continued EU membership.Ministers have been ordered not to join the rebels but will be allowed to abstain, a sign of the extent of the divisions that have dogged Cameron's party for decades. Three senior ministers, including Education Secretary Michael Gove, said on Sunday they were ready to abstain.Gove went further, becoming the most senior Conservative figure to publicly confirm that he would back Britain's withdrawal from the European Union if there were a vote based on the current terms of the relationship."I'm not happy with our position in the European Union but my preference is for a change in Britain's relationship with the European Union," said Gove, seen as a possible rival to Cameron. "Life outside would be perfectly tolerable, we could contemplate it, there would be certain advantages."Cameron came to power in a coalition with the pro-Europe Liberal Democrats in 2010 with a plea to his party to "stop banging on about Europe" – a squabble that helped to bring down his predecessors Margaret Thatcher and John Major. But the prime minister has come under increasing internal pressure after the party suffered in local elections this month at the hands of the anti-EU UK Independence Party.Cameron has promised to renegotiate Britain's relationship with the European Union and hold a plebiscite on EU membership in 2017, but euro-skeptics want a vote now. Cameron's plans depend not only on securing more favorable EU membership terms but also on forming the next government after elections in two years. The Conservatives currently trail the opposition Labor Party by around 10 percentage points in surveys.
(emphasis added)
Not only is Cameron faced with the threat posed by UKIP, he is now trailing the Labor party in polls as well. Clearly that has a number of people in his party very worried.
What Can Cameron Do?
Thinking this situation through, there really is only one solution for Cameron if he wants to rein the rebels in and keep UKIP off his back (or, as the case may be, adopt their position). He must reschedule the planned referendum and have it over with as soon as possible. There is only one problem with this: there is a very good chance that the British would say 'No' to the EU this time around.
It is to be suspected that this is the main reason why Cameron only promised a referendum by 2017. First of all, he may no longer lead the government at the time, in which case he never has to keep his promise. Secondly, he is probably hoping that if he still governs, the economy in the UK as well as euro-land will have recovered by then, which would increase the chances of a 'Yes' vote. It appears however as though it is ever more difficult to keep the skeptics in check with this kicking-the-can-down-the-road routine.
It should be noted that while a UK exit from the EU would probably not harm the UK one bit – it could simply join the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) instead – it would be a great loss to the citizens of continental Europe. This is because the UK is one of the few countries regularly opposing the more egregious statist plans of the Brussels eurocrats. For instance, recently the UK has vociferously opposed the Tobin tax on financial transaction that several continental EU governments want to impose. This tax is not only a Trojan horse, it is an idiotic economic policy that is enacted purely for populist reasons. It threatens capital formation in a region that is already burdened by way too high taxes, way too many regulations and lately a growing economic crisis to boot. Without the UK, who would be left to speak out against such nonsense?
and.....
Monday, May 13, 2013
Number of MPs backing referendum amendment grows - we see where they're coming from, but what are they backing?
47 MPs have now put their name to an amendment to the Queen's Speech that begs "leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Majesty for the Gracious Speech...
A) An in/out referendum now
B) An in/out referendum in 2017 (Conservative policy)
C) A mandating referendum now (to back a renegotiation)
D) A mandating referendum in 2017
E) A Confirmatory referendum (post renegotiation)
Or perhaps a combination of the above. So by backing this amendment you could either be in favour of renegotiation for a reformed EU or exit. As we've said before, we see where the backers are coming from on this, but this amendment may merely be a prelude to a bigger legislative battle down the tracks.
The real question is not whether, like Gove and Hammond and others, you would vote to leave the EU if a referendum was held today - the question is what level of reform/renegotiation would convince them to argue in favour of staying. On this there is a wider spectrum of opinion within the Conservative party, as there is within the UK generally. On one end you have those for whom only a return to a trade-only relationship would suffice while on the other end there are some for whom a token renegotiation along the lines of Harold Wilson might be enough.
But all that said the vote itself is not meaningless. It is really a response to a fear by Conservative MPs that although they believe David Cameron is resolved to renegotiate a better EU deal that can accommodate UK public opinion, they fear that there have been so many false promises on the EU that their winning policy will not gain the traction with the public it should.
Again, you can see where these MPs are coming from.
but respectfully regret that an EU referendum bill was not included in the Gracious Speech."This will be voted on Wednesday but what are they backing? There are any number of permutations:
A) An in/out referendum now
B) An in/out referendum in 2017 (Conservative policy)
C) A mandating referendum now (to back a renegotiation)
D) A mandating referendum in 2017
E) A Confirmatory referendum (post renegotiation)
Or perhaps a combination of the above. So by backing this amendment you could either be in favour of renegotiation for a reformed EU or exit. As we've said before, we see where the backers are coming from on this, but this amendment may merely be a prelude to a bigger legislative battle down the tracks.
The real question is not whether, like Gove and Hammond and others, you would vote to leave the EU if a referendum was held today - the question is what level of reform/renegotiation would convince them to argue in favour of staying. On this there is a wider spectrum of opinion within the Conservative party, as there is within the UK generally. On one end you have those for whom only a return to a trade-only relationship would suffice while on the other end there are some for whom a token renegotiation along the lines of Harold Wilson might be enough.
But all that said the vote itself is not meaningless. It is really a response to a fear by Conservative MPs that although they believe David Cameron is resolved to renegotiate a better EU deal that can accommodate UK public opinion, they fear that there have been so many false promises on the EU that their winning policy will not gain the traction with the public it should.
Again, you can see where these MPs are coming from.
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