Sunday 30 October 2011




65 Years Ago

The Sinews of Peace

March 5, 1946
Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri

Now I come to the second danger of these two marauders which threatens the cottage, the home, and the ordinary people-namely, tyranny. We cannot be blind to the fact that the liberties enjoyed by individual citizens throughout the British Empire are not valid in a considerable number of countries, some of which are very powerful. In these States control is enforced upon the common people by various kinds of all-embracing police governments. The power of the State is exercised without restraint, either by dictators or by compact oligarchies operating through a privileged party and a political police. It is not our duty at this time when difficulties are so numerous to interfere forcibly in the internal affairs of countries which we have not conquered in war. But we must never cease to proclaim in fearless tones the great principles of freedom and the rights of man which are the joint inheritance of the English-speaking world and which through Magna Carta,
the Bill of Rights, the Habeas Corpus, trial by jury, and the English common law find their most famous expression in the American Declaration of Independence.
All this means that the people of any country have the right, and should have the power by constitutional action, by free unfettered elections, with secret ballot, to choose or change the character or form of government under which they dwell; that freedom of speech and thought should reign; that courts of justice, independent of the executive, unbiased by any party, should administer laws which have received the broad assent of large majorities or are consecrated by time and custom. Here are the title deeds of freedom which should lie in every cottage home. Here is the message of the British and American peoples to mankind. Let us preach what we practise - let us practise what we preach.
snip

The safety of the world requires a new unity in Europe, from which no nation should be permanently outcast. It is from the quarrels of the strong parent races in Europe that the world wars we have witnessed, or which occurred in former times, have sprung. Twice in our own lifetime we have seen the United States, against their wishes and their traditions, against arguments, the force of which it is impossible not to comprehend, drawn by irresistible forces, into these wars in time to secure the victory of the good cause, but only after frightful slaughter and devastation had occurred. Twice the United States has had to send several millions of its young men across the Atlantic to find the war; but now war can find any nation, wherever it may dwell between dusk and dawn. Surely we should work with conscious purpose for a grand pacification of Europe, within the structure of the United Nations and in accordance with its Charter. That I feel is an open cause
of policy of very great importance.
https://winstonchurchill.org/learn/speeches/speeches-of-winston-churchill/120-the-sinews-of-peace

Europe at war 2018
China’s win-win situation
This was the week that European democracy died

The plan to tackle the eurozone crisis will only render ordinary people more powerless

SIMON WATKINS: The euro’s assault on democracy of member states

Germany makes Greece pay with sovereignty for new bail-out

Merkel wants 'permanent' supervision of Greece, warns of war

EU task force in Athens denies harming Greek sovereignty
By Valentina Pop

BRUSSELS - Greek sovereignty was further undermined by eurozone leaders on Thursday (27 October), as Germany demanded a "durable" supervision on the ground of its economic policy-making under the terms of a second ?130 billion bail-out.
The new rescue package, which comes with a 50 percent debt cut by private lenders and is to run until 2020, will include a "monitoring capacity on the ground" instead of current visits every three months by the troika of European Commission, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and European Central Bank lenders, the summit communique said.
The aim of the mission will be to "advise and offer assistance in order to ensure the timely and full implementation of the reforms." German Chancellor Angela Merkel pushed for the permanent presence instead of the current set-up, which sees the troika "coming and going every three months," she told journalists after the meeting.
As an afterthought, the leaders in their joint statement also referred to the EU commission-led "task force" of 25 experts who shuttle back and forth between Brussels and Athens and whose declared mission is also to help the government with reforms and tax collection. "
We fully support the task force on technical assistance set up by the commission," the summit declaration said. On Wednesday, the head of the task force briefed journalists in Athens and defended the legitimacy of his unit, which had been formally asked for by the Greek Prime Minister Papandreou earlier this summer after EU commission chief Barroso and EU leaders convinced him to do so.
Papandreou also freely asked for the permanent troika, according to the summit conclusions. Speaking to media on Thursday morning, Papandreou was thankful for the second bail-out and said that a default last year would have been worse than the 50-percent debt restructuring planned for January. "We were guinea pigs for these bail-outs.
We had to implement tough fiscal policies, we claimed European solutions," he said. But there was no bad blood towards Merkel, at least in public statements. "What the chancellor said fully complies with our position, we will be responsible in the implementation of this agreement. This will make a different country: more viable, more transparent," he said.
"The country that has been lending us money wishes that we succeed and we request their support. I would like them to be with us when there are issues and have discussions about it then, not three months later."
But ultimately, he stressed, nobody would be responsible for rebuilding the country other than "the Greek people, parliament and government."

Rating agencies face shake-up under EU plan

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Rating-agencies-face-shake-EU-rc-3164983466.html

Who will pay for the euro bailout?

As a deal to save the currency takes shape, Richard Bath concludes almost everyone will be ‘taking a haircut’



It was always going to be - by Richard... Sunday, October 30, 2011


It helps, just occasionally, to stand back from the breathless reporting of events and remind ourselves that the euro – and ultimately the EU – was always going to fail. And that is what Booker does in his column this week, and if he is blowing our own trumpet.

We thus concluded, when we published The Great Deception, that two things would ultimately bring about the disintegration of the “project”. The first was the most reckless of all the moves it devised to weld the member states together: imposing on them a single currency without any of the preconditions to make it workable, above all a single economic government with the power to tax and to transfer vast resources from richer countries to poorer.

The project's other fatal flaw was what even its supporters came to call its “democratic deficit”. The more powerful the new system became, the more it alienated those in whose name it was erected, as they came to see how the direction of their lives had been handed to a remote and mysterious government over which they had no control.

Whatever the prattling of idle – and often ignorant – hack, therefore, the one clear lesson of recent events, and the total insolubility of the crisis engulfing the euro, is that the project is slowly heading for very messy and prolonged disintegration.

Everyone involved, it seems, is trapped, concludes Booker. The only way Britain will leave the EU is when it falls apart, around us and everyone else. Which is what it has, finally, begun to do.

Eurozone Leaders Rush To Keep Debt-Crisis Deal Alive

Eurozone officials hurried to prevent the most recent debt-crisis deal from falling apart after a warning that it depended on high risk similar to what triggered the crisis.

The highly leveraged assets and contracts of the deal, used to swell the main eurozone bailout fund on paper to $1.4 trillion from $350 billion without putting any new, real money into the pot, "are not too different from those which were partly responsible for creating the crisis, because they concealed risks," German central bank President and influential economist Jens Weidmann told a Munich financial conference.

The economy of Germany is Europe's strongest and most powerful, UPI.com reported.

Also, the European Union forecast of Greek debt dropping to 120 percent of gross domestic product by 2020, from the current 160 percent, is based on Greece's economy growing 2 percent a year - while at the moment it is contracting 5.5 percent, other economists said.

Greece's debt must be 80 percent of GDP before the country can return to financial markets, analysts say.

Britain's Guardian reported that EU officials conceded to reporters Thursday the deal to cut Greece's debt in half and increase the main bailout fund to $1.4 trillion was, in effect, a box whose contents was not fully defined.

The EU officials claim more should become clear before the Group of 20 holds its summit meeting in Cannes, France, on Nov. 3-4, but they still needed a few weeks beyond that to come up with a full-fledged deal and a swap of Greek bonds early next year.
http://www.thirdage.com/news/eurozone-leaders-rush-to-keep-debt-crisis-deal-alive_10-29-2011

EU debt woes to last 'two or three years'

Longer-term challenges include: a "big structure shift in financial markets" caused by the damaged appeal of sovereign debt among investors, and boosting competitiveness in some countries, Regling said.
"Sovereign debt, which for decades or centuries were the predominant risk-free asset, may be losing that status, not only in Europe but also in other countries," he said.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hFIbSNH1KBfhWDDoXAkLITWWJK1w?docId=CNG.d10e26881fedf6c3427afc06a3404e33.791



Posted by Britannia Radio at 06:54