Tag Archives: eu

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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Europe. Since the time of Charlemagne, and Augustus before him, otherwise bright people have been trying to figure out a way to bind Europe together into something that approximates a single political entity. Charles V made a pretty solid showing during his reign. Henry VIII harbored his own dreams of European empire. Napoleon tried twice and Hitler damned near accomplished it. What do all these incredibly successful historical leaders have in common? Oh yeah, they all failed to unify Europe. By that light, I’m not sure why anyone is particularly surprised that a group of less inspiring bureaucrats in Brussels are having a tough time holding together a European Union. In the long run I think they best they can hope for is coming up with a dignified exit strategy. Even if the EU isn’t finished, it’s bound to look a lot different than the one they dreamed up at Maastricht in 1992.

Burger King. I love bacon about as well as anyone I know, but I’ve never sat here at home eating a bowl of ice cream and thought to myself, “Self, you know what would make this ice cream better? Bacon bits and a crispy slice of fried goodness.” I’m sure my fellow Americans will line up to buy this new bacon sundae, but as much of a glutton as I am, I’m afraid I’ll have to take a pass on it. It really just sounds like one of the most god awful ideas ever.

Drones. I’m tired of people spazzing out about unmanned aerial vehicles being the next wave of big brother keeping an eye on everyone. If Uncle Sam was really that interested in knowing what we’re up to, don’t you think maybe he has more sophisticated methods than sending a remote controlled helicopter to give you and me the once over? It’s cute when people are so paranoid that they can’t see the forest for the trees.

Euro Trash…

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Free and open elections are wonderful things, except for the part where people tend to elect the kind of leaders they deserve instead of the kind they actually need. Getting yourself elected on a platform of more spending, lowering the retirement age, taxing the rich, and saying the hell with the global finance system is pretty much a cakewalk. Politics 101 is pretty much focused on telling the people whatever they need to hear to give you their vote. Unfortunately, Politics 410 is the real world practice of how to govern once you find yourself taking over the plush new office you won in the last election. I suspect our friends in France are going to discover that governing is a far more problematic exercise than simply getting elected.

We live in a wildly interconnected world, particularly when it comes to the economy. Unrest in Europe, bad decisions, and blatant disregard for economic fundamentals will ripple across the Atlantic and wash up on our shores as tidal waves if a balance in the system isn’t maintained. For a hundred years, the United States could be counted on to prop up the international economy in times of distress. This week, this month, this year, the story is a little different. We aren’t in a position to flood the market with liquidity. We’re just barely in a position to eek out positive GDP growth for ourselves, keeping our proverbial head above water as it were… Even that’s required borrowing completely unsustainable amounts of money.

The system, for the moment, is in a perilous balance. Trying to go it alone based on election year promises seems like a sure recipe for upending what small measure of stability the marketplace has managed to achieve this year. I just hope our friends across the pond have the good sense to know the difference between electioneering and governing. If they don’t, well, the global economy and our own personal economies could be a much more brutal looking place a year from now. Might as well open the door on a new bloody Dark Age.

See, and people say I can’t be hopelessly optimistic.

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Regardless of what you call it, when you creditors agree to write off 50% of your existing debt you are, by definition in default. Call it a haircut. Call it a Pontiac. It’s a default. Period. End of story. Fortunately, the world is polite enough to call it something different in the hopes that no one will notice and in the process they can prevent the European Union from flinging itself apart. When the rest of the world goes to all this trouble, the polite thing to do would be to say thank you and then go on about the business of trying to salvage your national economy. But that’s not your style is it, Greece. Oh no. You’re going to ask you voters, who have already demonstrated their inability to face reality, vote on the idea as a national referendum. Seriously? Are you trying to make a name for yourself as the go-to country for dysfunctional government? As a citizen of the United States, I thought we had a lock on that one, but you’re making a damned good run at it.

Look, it’s only a matter of time before the rest of us have to take our share of the bitter, bitter austerity medicine. Yes, it sucks being the one stuck going first but that was just the luck of the draw. Could have happened to any of a dozen debtor nations. We can kick and scream that it’s not fair until we’re all blue in the face, but guess what… the universe doesn’t care about fair. We can do the hard things now, while we still have some options, or we can wait a while and then spend the next two decades just reacting to things that could have been avoided if we’d have taken action sooner.

Getting there is…

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Note: This post is based on notes I made between March 27th and March 29th and I reserve the right to edit this posting for content and clarity at a later date.

In truth, getting there is really a giant pain in the ass. In our case, the pain was slightly magnified by having only a 45 minute scheduled layover in Munich. Clearing EU customs with 29 people, and getting to the next gate: simply not going to happen in 45 minutes. I’m fairly certain that’s some kind of natural law or something. At any rate, we missed our connecting flight and had the opportunity to spend an extra three hours in the beautiful Munich International Airport. That last part wasn’t actually snarky… The Munich Airport is a pretty nice place to be stuck… and you can smoke inside as long as you don’t mind standing in a small ventilated booth contraption. I wish I would have taken a picture of those. I may want to have one installed in the house if the weather doesn’t improve soon.

Munich is also a good place to people watch. And by people watch, I mean ogle foreign women with the confidence that you are almost guaranteed not to ever see them again. I need to note here that as a group, European women are just plain hot. Their accents are hot… and sweet Jesus, do they know how to dress. I don’t necessarily mean that they’re slut-ified, but hot in an elegant Kate Hepburn kind of way, but I digress.

The first real day of the tour started off with 29 exhausted tourists heading for a 45 minute boat ride to Venice. Most of us probably remember that Venice is the “City of Canals,” but what the history books usually leave out is that canals are, even today, the principle mode of transportation in the old city. Come to think of it, I don’t actually remember seeing any cars on the island. Not that those cars would have had anywhere to go, because as the books also left out, there really aren’t “roads” per se, more like alleys and footbridges. Basically, if you’re not on a boat, you’re walking. The place really is amazing. It’s one of those places where the pictures don’t really do it justice. I think the fact that we were really there hadn’t really settled in at that point, so those first days have a bit of a tendency to blur together. Venice is really something you have to see to believe. More something out of a picture book than a real place.