Tim Worstall This is absurd! So the bankers whose excesses helped land Europe in this mess then get to sit round the big EU table, like any other government, and decide who should pay for it. And the answer, unsurprisingly, is: not them. The bigger question is: why finance has been granted such power? This  [ Read More ]

Tim Worstall No, Ed, this wasn’t the 30s’ mistake: “I fear what’s happening here is that the world is making the 1930s mistake and the ratings agencies are partly responsible for this. Even though it is clear in Greece, in Ireland, in other countries, in Britain too (that) this austerity isn’t working, the message is  [ Read More ]

Democracy Movement The European Union has always boasted that it is a force for democracy; a guardian against a return to the authoritarian politics that have haunted various parts of our continent. This, of course, as recent events in Greece have confirmed, is total nonsense. The EU elite power system is, and always has been,  [ Read More ]

John Redwood Some say it is democracy – but not as we know it. It is true the Euro is a great device for bringing down EU member states governments. Recent victims include Ireland and Portugal, with the Greek government hanging by a thread. Electors can still change the people who are in a government,  [ Read More ]

Ruth Lea Last weekend’s IMF and G20 meetings were of the utmost significance. Amidst crashing equity markets and IMF downgrades, the Eurozone’s leaders came under intense criticism and pressure from other participants to “resolve” the Eurozone crisis, which has been proving so destabilising to the financial markets. US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, for example, called  [ Read More ]

John Redwood The winners last night at the EU summit were the Greek army. Today they can relax. Their future wages are now going to be paid by more EU loans, at lower rates of interest. The losers last night were the French and German taxpayers. They have to lend more to Greece, for less  [ Read More ]

Ruth Lea Over the last fortnight there have been three major developments in the increasingly beleaguered and dysfunctional Eurozone. One can only hope that Europe’s politicians who created this monster now regard their work with a little humility if not pained embarrassment. But I wouldn’t bet on it, such is the chasm between themselves and  [ Read More ]

John Redwood The UK government has been right to argue against a further Greek bail out, and right to keep the UK out of any direct Greek bail out. I have argued here that another bail out for a country which cannot afford its current debts will not solve the problem. it just means more  [ Read More ]