Euro Bitterness, Fun to Watch
Rob Long ·
Sep 29, 2011 at 3:45pm
Peter Oborne, the Daily Telegraph (UK) chief political commentator, engages in some delicious score-settling here. It's wonderful. It must be a small wicked pleasure to be a Briton right now who argued against adopting the Euro. And it must be squirmingly uncomfortable to have argued for it.
Enjoy:
PS: Stay to the end, to watch the EU bureaucrat -- whom Oborne continually calls "that idiot" -- storm off.
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Nov '10
Re: Euro Bitterness, Fun to Watch
Jun '10
Re: Euro Bitterness, Fun to Watch
There goes the new age of civility, again!
Aug '10
Re: Euro Bitterness, Fun to Watch
If only they had the Ricochet CoC, they could get to the root of the problems. Oh and if the Financial Times dude could engage in any meaningful sort of honest self-inspection.
Dec '10
Re: Euro Bitterness, Fun to Watch
My left-wing media hack detector has been calibrated to exacting standards over the years. Mr. Chauvinist and I gave the FT and the Economist a subscription run, keeping open minds to possibly having a good source for international news. It took about an issue each to detect the left-wing nuttery. The only rational explanation for such irrationality is that leftism is a religion in which facts, reality and history play no part.
Such uncivil truth-telling from a right-winger is very refreshing. Thanks, Rob.
Oct '10
Re: Euro Bitterness, Fun to Watch
The FT editor literally just changed the subject when the consequences of his editorial blindness grew too uncomfortable. As Dennis Prager often says, being on the Left means never having to say you're sorry.
Edited on Sep 29, 2011 at 4:35pmApr '11
Re: Euro Bitterness, Fun to Watch
Much like the tea party folks over here, the Euro skeptics were vilified and marginalized by their political betters. Good for Osborne for sticking it to the idiots.
Jun '10
Re: Euro Bitterness, Fun to Watch
The FT guy is just as much as an idiot. He said, "The facts changed... Franch and Germany didn't obey the rules..., etc." Well, uh, yeah, that's why sovereign countries don't want to hitch their wagon to other countries that can drag them down. The FT guy basically said, "What's wrong with the Euro? If nothing had gone wrong, it would have been fine." That's the point, things always go wrong! In another beautiful line, he said that (paraphrased) "of course the Euro won't default because it would be catastrophic." Because something is bad means it won't happen? Pathetic. I know being a sore winner is considered rude, but how else are people going to learn?
May '11
Re: Euro Bitterness, Fun to Watch
Fantastic to see Oborne taking it to the guilty!
Edited on Sep 29, 2011 at 6:54pmJan '11
Re: Euro Bitterness, Fun to Watch
That was always the logic behind "too big to fail." The irony is that to declare a bank (or currency) too big to fail is to enable its mischief.
May '10
Re: Euro Bitterness, Fun to Watch
Western Chauv. - While I am not one to defend the FT, they do have Martin Wolf in their stable, who is worth a weekly read.
To their credit, the Europeans are bringing more honesty and forthrightness to their economic debate (in spite of elites constantly lying to the electorate) than we have in our debate.
All of our concerns revolve around the current account debt, its trend line and impact of its size versus GDP & subsequent downside economic impacts this will bring. This is even true in the recent BCG study.
As depressing as all this is, our debate ignores the $85-$100+Trillion unfunded liabilities we currently enjoy..........like if we fix the current problem through (hopefully radical) restructuring, everything will turn out OK.........Unfortunately, no.
Until we inject something of the honesty and clarity into our debate that the Europeans are beginning to do in theirs, we have zero chance of beginning to get on top of the real issues and forge a way forward.
Re: Euro Bitterness, Fun to Watch
He'd have done better not to call people "idiots," but, that aside, Oborne turned in a bravura performance here--and he was entirely correct to hold the former editor of the Financial Times to account. Margaret Thatcher was right, and he was wrong, and that is that.
Sep '10
Re: Euro Bitterness, Fun to Watch
The book, Guilty Men, that Peter Oborne threw across the table, can be purchased here: http://www.cps.org.uk/cps_catalog2/Guilty_Men.html . It costs 10 British pounds, which is 15.62 US dollars or 11.49 euros (spend them while you still can!).
Edited on Sep 29, 2011 at 8:57pmJun '10
Re: Euro Bitterness, Fun to Watch
It is demeaning to use the term idiot. But, you can see the anger that Oborne felt.
This is such a difficult time in our history to understand really well. How far will all this go? Will another depression convince these people? I just don't think they care really. Our elites and those in Europe just plan on being on top of the corpse of Western Civilization when it drops to the ground.
There is such an odd disconnect to read Mark Steyn's new book and then to see people in our government, in Europe and the MSM just treat all this like it's just another incident to get over and talk about in subdued tones: we'll muddle through somehow....
We might not.
Dec '10
Re: Euro Bitterness, Fun to Watch
What I love about this is finally, finally the words of most people are actually hitting the rarefied air of serious discussion.
The folks in Washington and New York are, in my circles at least, called idiots when we feel charitable. They need to be called idiots. They haven't a clue are are dangerous with almost unlimited power.
Oct '10
Re: Euro Bitterness, Fun to Watch
Mr Oborne is an odd duck. Anyone know what to make of this?
May '11
Re: Euro Bitterness, Fun to Watch
Rob, Thanks for posting that. It was great. I've tought for a while now that somewhere in the UK they should be building a statue to John Major for keeping them out of the Euro.
Dec '10
Re: Euro Bitterness, Fun to Watch
I just finished listening to Charles Krauthammer's lecture, "Decline is a Choice" found on the American Conservative University site. You can watch it at the Manhattan Institute here.
The good doctor points out that there are solutions for America (not so much for the Europeans, especially if we abdicate), but it is almost overwhelming to accept that the sweeping destructiveness of this administration is the natural consequence of the ideology held by the president and much of the Democratic party. It is very difficult not to be apocalyptic in outlook. God help us.
Oct '10
Re: Euro Bitterness, Fun to Watch
I thought the FT editor admitted his mistake with about as much honesty as you'd expect someone in his position to have. He does have a point: if the Growth and Stability Pact had been followed, economic imbalances would not have grown so large, and member states other than Germany would have had to enact structural reforms earlier, when they would have been much less painful.
Of course, merely following the G&SP might not have saved the euro, since not all member states in crisis got there because of excessive government deficits. Some of them (Spain, Ireland, etc) worked around the rules against government deficits by encouraging private borrowing.
Jul '10
Re: Euro Bitterness, Fun to Watch
The willingness to call a spade a spade is why British political speech is so much better than ours. Pawlenty's career ended because he couldn't bring himself to say what he meant about Romney's health care plan. Cain's campaign is soaring because he doesn't hesitate to say exactly what he means. Newt's reputation goes up another notch with every debate for the same reason.We all know what happened to Perry, and Dubya's administration was dogged by his frequent lapses into verbal mush. If a man in public life is guilty of idiocy, he deserves to be called an idiot.
Edited on Sep 30, 2011 at 2:06pmApr '11
Re: Euro Bitterness, Fun to Watch
Hans Hoogervorst, Chair of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). He spoke at an investors conference in Boston (PDF) yesterday. He was quoted as saying:
"European banks carried out "blatant breaches" of IFRS in valuing their holdings of Greek debt."
"This is evident particularly in their accounting for distressed sovereign debt, including Greek government bonds.
.
The bottom line from the chair of the International Standards Board is that the European banks are fudging their books. This is not the Blogs making this assertion. It’s coming from the highest authority that exists.
This conflict can’t be ignored much longer. It’s possible that the EU banks will try to wash this over one more time in their third quarter statements. I think it will be damn near impossible for them to issue annual reports for 2011 without full disclose."
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/were-getting-closer