This is exactly what I want to hear from Germany: Rettet unser Geld! Save our money! Back to the deutschmark! (A hat tip to the European Voice for spotting the book in the arrivals hall of Berlin's Tegel airport last week). Herr Henkel, along with millions of other Germans, has woken up to the damage the eurozone and the eurozone so-called rescue is doing to their country. The book is sold next to a poster that says: 'Spending on education and research: 11 billion. Spending on euro rescue: 22 billion.' As the European Voice points out, that last figure is the amount Germany is signed-up to provide to the permanent eurozone rescue fund, the European Stability Mechanism, due to kick-in in 2013. But on top of that 22bn euros are billions more in guarantees the German government will give to cover the countries of the periphery in case they default after 2013 . 'In case they default?' As if there is any 'in case' about it. Greece will default, and the way it's looking, well before 2013. German big cheeses, and German medium-sized taxpayers, are finally realising just how much their eurozone-obedient government has signed over to the countries of the bottomless Mediterranean money pit. So Herr Henkel's voice is just the latest among German leaders to question Chancellor Angela Merkel's policies towards the weaker eurozone countries. Although if you sit through enough European Council meetings you eventually wonder if Merkel has anything that could even be called a policy. She and the rest of what passes for leadership in the eurozone just stumble along from one chapter of the crisis to the next. They don't know what they want, except just not the breakup of the eurozone, and the eurocrats who are supposed to be implementing whatever it is politicians such as Merkel come up with as policy have been proven to be incompetent. Evil and devious, of course, but incompetent. Which is what makes me certain the break up of the eurozone must come. As I said, cheering stuff.k Even after he left government, Vance senior spent years being recalled to help in diplomatic negotiations around the world. And according to one of his law partners with whom I had dinner years ago, when Vance travelled, he always took his wife. Reason: the tall and lanky former secretary of state -- known as 'Spider' to his friends -- had the kind of back trouble that often comes with that sort of vertical build. The result was that he could not bend down to tie his shoes. Mrs Vance was there to help each morning as he got dressed. Vance apparently would have been embarrassed to ask hotel staff for help. You ask: why didn't he just wear slip-ons? Vance was a Yale man born in 1917. That generation wouldn't have worn slip-ons -- or 'loafers' as he no doubt would have called them -- with anything but chinos and a polo shirt. Result of course was that no whisper of scandal could ever come from any swish hotel room in which Vance stayed. Lesson: need an alibi? Take your wife.
20 May 2011 11:15 AM
Rettet unser Geld: Germans realise the euro-fraud is endangering their prosperity
17 May 2011 9:29 AM
The NY District Attorney in the Strauss-Kahn case: how not to get in trouble in hotels
Sunday, 29 May 2011
This is cheering stuff. Hans-Olaf Henkel, a former head of the Federation of German Industries and a member of the boards of Bayer and Daimler Aerospace - in other words, a German big cheese -- has just written a book called 'Save our money! Selling off Germany: How the euro-fraud is endangering our prosperity.'
The Manhattan District Attorney handling the Strauss-Kahn case is called Cyrus Vance Jr. And if you are old enough that the name sounds familiar, it is because he is the son of a former US Secretary of State, the late Cyrus Vance, who served in President Jimmy Carter's cabinet.
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