Posted on 11/21/2010 6:43:34 AM PST by fightinJAG
[snip]
Mr Delors told colleagues that any crisis would be a “beneficial crisis”, allowing the EU to break down resistance to fiscal federalism, and to accumulate fresh power. The purpose of EMU was political, not economic, so the objections of economists could happily be disregarded. Once the currency was in existence, EU states would have give up national sovereignty to make it work over time. It would lead ineluctably to the Monnet dream of a fully-fledged EU state. Bring the crisis on.
Behind this gamble, of course, was the assumption that any crisis could be contained at a tolerable cost once the imbalances of EMU’s one-size-fits-none monetary system had already reached catastrophic levels, and once the credit bubbles of Club Med and Ireland had collapsed. It assumed too that Germany, The Netherlands, and Finland would ultimately – under much protest – agree to foot the bill for a ‘Transferunion’.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.telegraph.co.uk ...
He also covered the Oklahoma City bombing .
Because occasionally the start-up of the article goes on and on before it gets to the point that seems most relevant to the present political situation.
In this case, my thinking was that it was very relevant to point out how the EU is collapsing from within, economically, which is leading to calls for it to create a more powerful central political government.
If the excerpt didn’t work to pique your interest in the article, I apologize.
I agree with you.
However. If the EU is looking, not at what federalism actually is/should be, but at what it has become in the United States -- a gargantuan Leviathan called the "federal government" -- then, maybe their nomenclature isn't so wrong after all. Sadly.
IOW, it's pretty clear how easy it is to take the actual concept of federalism and, with liberal judges and so on through legislative incrementalism (especially "no crisis will be wasted" responses), turn it into the diametric opposite of limited central government.
Moreover, it's also pretty clear how difficult it is to put the cat back in the bag once "federalism" has been bloated into omnipotence by the welfare state.
Ha, they even call it a “Transferunion.” A union based on and for the purpose of sharing (”transferring”) the wealth.
It sounds as though it’s actually possible that the EU will break up, at least in terms of currency unity. That takes some wrapping of the mind around.
But then what?
Your conclusion may still stand. There will be a lot of animosity between countries rise up again. Look at this article, Greece has already been bringing up how Germany owes them because of what the Nazis did.
In this article, A Continent of Losers, the author wonders whether ethnic Europeans will, so to speak, consolidate into 3-4 countries and leave the rest to be given over to become Eurarabia.
That may be so, but I can’t think of any reason why the fundamental facts he has pointed out here are not a problem, or at least a potential problem.
I think it would be almost impossible — unless sheer cataclysm occurred in Europe — to walk back the Euro. But I think there are a lot of people who would be willing to try if push came to shove.
Some years ago I spoke with a German national who talked of "retaking lands stolen from Germany". When I asked him where they were, he said "The land that Poland has now". Seems like there's plenty of old wounds to pick at.
sorry, of course you’re right. I must have been bitterly clinging to my guns and religion when I posted that rot. /s
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