Quote of the day 6th July 2015
“Self-evident, adj. Evident to one's self and to nobody else.”
( Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary )
( Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary )
Nick Herbert on his visit to flood hit areas of Cumbria
Please note that the post below was published more than ten year ago on 21st November 2009 Nick Herbert MP, shadow cabinet member for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, was in Cumbria this morning to see the areas affected by the flooding. He writes on Conservative Home about his visit. Here is an extract. I’ve been in Cumbria today to see the areas affected by the floods. I arrived early in Keswick where I met officials from the Environment Agency. Although the river levels had fallen considerably and homes were no longer flooded, the damage to homes had been done. And the water which had got into houses wasn’t just from the river – it was foul water which had risen from the drains. I talked to fire crews who were pumping flood water back into the river, and discovered that they were from Tyne & Wear and Lancashire. They had been called in at an hours’ notice and had been working on the scene ever since, staying at a local hotel. You cannot fail to be impressed by the
Comments
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too
Rudyard Kipling
But they may not have much choice.
The British government, the commission and the other EU governments didn't want the pound to leave the Exchange Rate Mechanism of the EMS on Black Wednesday either - and they didn't have any choice, it would have been impossible to maintain the required exchange rate for an hour longer.
It is harder for the markets to force a country out of a common currency area than it is to make untenable the designated exchange rate of a "fixed exchange rate" system between different currencies.
But the conditions where it becomes impractical to sustain Greek membership of the Eurozone are coming closer and closer to being met.
look, the colleagues have had much worse and have pulled it off. besides the Greek economy is around 3% of the Eurozone (sure its a problem, but hardly a ground breaking one, its a bit like not getting a pay rise with inflation one year, sure it sucks but its hardly going to break the bank.
Remember the Euro was made not to work, there was not the political will at the time to make it happen, so it is designed to hit crisis after crisis, its the only way that to make the required changes can seem legitemate. Oh whoopie well done the colleagues save the day with this "new" policy for only a little bit more power.
I think you are over reading what is there, and over estimating the Greek Eurozone level and also under estimating the will of the Colleagues to make it an excuse for further intergration.
To quote Taylor Swift "I can read you like a magazine"
Current exchange rates are based on the view of currency traders that the probability of Grexit from the Euro is about 65% to 70%, which is another way of saying that they accept there is a 30-35% chance that you are right.
Which is a much higher probability than all the so-called experts thought there was of a Tory majority (you could still get odds of about four to one against a Conservative majority on election night four hours after the exit poll) and you were right on that one and they were wrong.
So I am absolutely not going to pretend that I or anyone else knows for certain that you're wrong. You might be calling this one correctly too.
Nevertheless, if I were placing any bets on it - which I'm not, because the odds available are too close to my own view of probabilities for me to see any value bets - my instinct would be to predict that Greece will leave the Euro this year.
It isn't just down to the Commission. They don't control the money. That is down to the Eurozone governments - particularly Germany - the ECB, and the IMF.
The antics of Tsipras and his government have hacked off most of the Eurozone governments, particularly that of Germany, and the IMF, and even the ECB, so badly that I don't think the will to keep carrying that 3% is still there.
Particularly because the German electorate is even more badly hacked off with Greece than the German government, and Angela Merkel did not get to be the most powerful politician in Europe by getting too far out of line with her own voters.
If Germany won't pay nobody else will pick up the tab. And if nobody will pick up the tab for them, Greece has to change course or leave the Euro.