Conversation on a train
Overcrowded late running LNER train into King’s Cross. Two guys engaged in conversation in the buffet car on their way to Peterborough from a beer festival in York. Topic of conversation Brexit, Donald Trump, EU, Jeremy Corbyn, austerity.
You want to join in?
To understand Trump, have to understand Trump is a brand, Brand Trump, everything he does is to enhance the value of Brand Trump. He could have lost the Presidential race, it would not have mattered, he would have enhanced Brand Trump. Trump is an oligarch in the mould of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan or Vladimir Putin. Were it not for the media giving him the oxygen of publicity, Trump would have sunk without trace.
To defeat Trump, have to devalue the value of Brand Trump.
In the Presidential Race, a poor choice, Donald Trump or Hilary Clinton. The Clintons are seen as corrupt, in the pocket of Big Oil, Banks and Big Business. Like money-grubbing war criminal Tony Blair, out to line their own pockets. Bill Clinton was responsible for destruction of American jobs, a legacy of rusting steel mills, crumbling factories, Barack Obama continued the same policies, failed to be tough on the banks.
The banks were bailed out, with nothing in return.
To understand the EU, have to go back to the end of the Second World War. Germany was defeated, Europe lay in ruins, the currencies worthless. The only two countries with viable currencies, US and Switzerland. US had a monetary surplus.
It was not the New Deal that rebuilt the US economy after the Great Depression, it was the war economy. The New Dealers feared not another world war but a return to the Great Depression.
Bretton Woods established IMF and World Bank. J M Keynes proposed a third body that would recycle monetary surpluses, in this case US surplus, but Americans would not accept a body controlled by Europeans who had just started two world wars and it was their money. Keynes returned from Bretton Woods a broken man and died not long after.
The Americans would guarantee European currencies tied to the dollar, which in turn was tied to gold, the Gold Standard.
The Americans created the EU, its forerunner, they had a choice who to deal with either Communists or those who had contempt for democracy, they chose the latter, helped create a cartel for big businesses, eurocrats with a contempt for democracy.
America faced two crisis, coming off the Gold Standard and the Oil Crisis. America switched from a country that recycled its own surpluses to a country that recycled other country’s surpluses.
Post-WWII until mid-1970s economies saw steady growth, since then decline and stagnation.
Banks ever keen to make money, created dodgy financial instruments, worthless, but treated and traded as solid as gold, until they were seen to be worthless, the banks that had invested heavily, collapsed.
Banks were bailed out, the poor paid the price, austerity used as a cover for Shock Doctrine, slash and burn of public services. The rich grew richer, the poor poorer.
When we are told there is no money for public services it is a lie, deal with the tax dodgers.
The euro by design intent or not, drains money from southern Europe into Germany.
With fixed exchange rates, southern Europe cannot devalue and balance the books, German intransigence means there is no recycling mechanism.
The massive loan to Greece was a classic example of extend and pretend, the money flowed into Greece and back out to French and German banks. The conditions imposed turned Greece into a debt colony of the EU, forced sell off of state assets, rape and pillage of Greece. The price as always paid by the poorest and most vulnerable of Greek citizens, benefits have been cut, pensions cut, youth unemployment high, public hospitals collapsing.
Greece was destroyed for daring to challenge the EU, to set an example to other vassal states thinking of challenging the EU.
This should have served as a warning to the UK, but has not.
Following the EU Referendum, there should have been open public meetings to draw up a consensus of where we go, then all political parties work together to take on the EU. Instead petty political squabbling. It does not matter who negotiates with EU, unless it capitulation and appeasement, they will say no. We could have same trade tomorrow as today. This would be to the benefit of all of Europe. The EU is determined to punish the UK to set an example, no matter what the cost to Europe.
A second referendum will solve nothing. If a draw, what then, best of three?
Further reading
No is Not Enough — Naomi Klein
The Global Minotaur — Yanis Varoufakis
And the Weak Suffer What They Must? — Yanis Varoufakis
Adults in the Room — Yanis Varoufakis
