The Euro?

This coming week, sometime after the 9th, the UK will announce whether they will hold a referendum on dumping the pound (see below) and converting to the Euro, or waiting.  Everything seems to point to the idea they'll defer joining up with the mainland currency for a few more years.

If you want to follow the debate you might want to check the British Press on the net.

The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/ calls itself "progressive" but some would call it left-wing, or center-left.  It is pretty lively.  Pro-Euro.

The Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/  is right-center, or Tory right.  It is owned by Conrad Black, the fellow who owns any number of Canadian newspapers and now this one.  In the late nineties he was granted a knighthood and had to give up his Canadian citizenship.  Anti-Euro.

BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/ is neutral, if not a bit bland.  They have a reputation of impartiality, except with the conservative commentators over here -- these guys call them the Baghdad Broadcasting Corporation because the BBC were not sufficiently pro-Bush in the recent war.  The claim is that they were morally neutral when such neutrality is unforgivable.  Whatever.  They simply report stuff.

The Times of London http://www.timesonline.co.uk/ is stuffy.  It is owned by Rupert Murdoch, the same guy who owns Fox and Fox News, and the Los Angeles Dodgers.  It is slanted Tory right, but rather intelligent.

5 June 2003

Quick Hit 1 - Tonto knew best...

It seems to me the UK folks on the political left really ought to understand that tagging along on the coattails of the powerful -- as the faithful, silent, subservient if not submissive sidekick -- keeps one safe.  Siding with Jacques Chirac doesn't.

Tonto considered the Lone Ranger -- the gun, and those silver bullets, and the horse, and the attitude.  And he knew what role to assume.  A matter of survival.

Why get on Tony Blair's case?  Yeah, Tony said we had to have this war to destroy those weapons of mass destruction in Iraq - because the UK could be attacked with anthrax and VX "within forty-five minutes." 

So he lied.  Big deal.  He landed on the winning side.  Chirac didn't.
 
Is the upcoming referendum in early June one where the Brits really ought to vote, once again, to reject adopting the Euro in lieu of the pound, and should they thus align themselves with the dollar?  One must choose sides.  We're letting the dollar slide in a grand game of "beggar your neighbor" where there are winners and losers.  Think about it, Tony.

With the Euro now twenty-four percent up on the dollar in the last year, we, on this side of the pond, have a much better chance than ever before of destroying a good many French and German companies who export to this country.  Their stuff is going to be a lot more expensive over here.  Who will buy it?   Perhaps Daimler-Benz and VW will die for Gerhard Schröder's sins (and then the Chrysler Corporation will be freed from its evil German masters?) 

And what tourist will visit France or Germany when the trip is now much more than twenty percent more expensive than it is was just last year?  The dollar's slide helps us actually even more than any boycott.  Don't piss off the big guy.  Blair knows this.

Of course, if our now discounted dollar makes our goods and services a whole lot cheaper to the rest of the world, who will buy anything if we've driven them all into deep recession?  A curious problem - one makes the goods more affordable but destroys the market for those goods.  Oh well.

The real punishment has only just started.

____

29 May 2003