What’s wrong with the euro, then?

I came across a past copy of the Daily Express, not a paper I read often even online. Above the main headline you will see: “EXCLUSIVE: Secret squad preparing us to join euro.” I know what the political inclination of the Express is, so its alarmist tone doesn’t surprise me in the least. On Page 2 is a long article headlined, “X43m is spent on unit plotting to join euro.” (The X should be a pound sign but I haven’t got one readily available on my keyboard. Sorry.) There is even a box for a poll that asks, “Is joining the euro a disaster for Britain?” and phone numbers marked Yes or No – costing at least 25p (or €0.31) per call. The article is full of words and phrases like ‘secretive’, ‘lavished on the project’, ‘will fuel fears’, ‘propaganda’, and so on. Subsequent articles and comments in that paper are much the same (see one here: “Spectre of rule by Europe, etc.”), and that isn’t the only such rag perpetrating the myth.

As anyone living in Spain on a fixed income in pounds will tell you, the exchange rate right now is crap and although I might not be an economist, I can predict that things are unlikely to get any better. Indeed, I figure we’re headed for a 1 to 1 exchange rate and an opportunity for Britain to at last join the euro zone. (Alarums from Express readers.)

What’s wrong with that? As almost any related Express article will tell you, rule by Brussels is anathema. Yet the UK is ruled by the EU already – or why are there constant complaints about it? A favourable exchange rate would surely mean that more British goods would be sold around the world, specially in Europe. And millions of travellers to the continent, that far off place just across the Channel, wouldn’t have to deal with the ‘complicated’ business of changing currencies everywhere. And let’s not even mention pensions for expat residents this side of the water, many of whom can no longer afford to live here in the style to which they’d become accustomed and most certainly couldn’t afford to live the same way in the UK either.

The first glass of wine I ever had in Spain a million years ago cost 2 pesetas (or €0.01) and it came with a tapa of delicious olives. My first wage packet in London, about a year before I took wine and tapas in Spain, was not quite X20 (or about €25 at today’s exchange rate) and wine in the pubs around Fleet Street where I worked was prohibitive, Rioja even more so and the cheap Cyprus variety undrinkable. Things have changed, of course, but in Spain we work in order to live, while in Britain it appears they live in order to work – if they’re not scamming the overloaded benefit system, that is. Not even Brussels can change those attitudes.

(c) Alexander Bewick 2008

Lies that come home to roost

That’s it, George W. Bush has had to admit (temporary) defeat for his rescue of the U.S. banking system: Congress did not pass his request for $700 billion to bail out the greedy sharks of Wall Street. The world’s stock exchanges dropped like lead balloons, with Big Brother Nynex falling to hysterical lows that haven’t been seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The Dow Jones Industrial Average started to plummet the minute the voting began to be counted and ended the day down 778 points, the worst point drop ever. By yesterday, though, the European markets had begun to creep up, albeit with a beady eye on Big Brother across the water. Spain’s Ibex stock market index was probably the least affected by the Wall Street crash in Europe, though.

What had the Bush administration tried to do? Have the U.S. government take over the bad debts accummulated by American banks and to let them start lending to each other again. And why do the banks have so many bad debts? Because they bought up bonds that were issued by their fellow bankers, based on rubbish mortgages they knew could not be paid. Why does this impact on European banking? Because it, too, bought into the bonds and what amounts to lies. This is simplistic, I know, but it puts things into perspective a little.

I don’t pretend to have any knowledge of finances (my bank manager can vouch for that) and even less so of global economics. But I can smell the shit when it hits the fan. And the whole thing stinks.

Seven hundred million million is what the Americans call $700 billion. That’s a lot of frijoles, as they might say, too. Enough to feed the world’s hungry several times over. Enough to ensure water for all those exploited (largely by America and Britain) countries where the people have to live on less than a litre a week, for many years. Enough to find a permanent cure for malaria without the intervention of multi-national chemical companies making a fast buck. Or AIDS. I agree, it is a simplistic point of view. But when I see the well-suited sharks in their expensive cars heading home to their expensive Manhattan or Chelsea abodes, having had an expensive lunch on their expense accounts and betting expensively on how many expensive points the markets will drop, knowing they won’t have to scramble for water or food… No, I don’t feel sorry for them when they lose their jobs. I don’t feel anything.

Simplistic, yes, but my teeth can’t stop grinding.

(c) Alexander Bewick 2008

The age of greed

Northern Rock, Fannie Mae, Fannie Mac, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, XL, Alitalia. HBoss, AIG. Morgan Stanley… these are just some of the big names in the news today, most if not all of them global in the reach of their tentacles. Bankruptcies, failures, government rescues (at your and my expense), last minute bail-outs… these are just some of the panic reactions. Billions of dollars, pounds, euros, yen. I can’t be bothered to check all the figures, the dancing numbers simply overwhelm me. One wonders, though, how the executives’ golden parachutes fared. It’s not a wild guess that none of them will go hungry, however contrite they may appear behind their sound bites. Politicians, expert biters of sound, chase air space to explain themselves – for what? To keep their jobs. God knows it might be difficult for most of them to find gainful employment if they lose this one…

Is it necessary here to get into the speculation surrounding the price of oil, which is blamed for almost all our ills rather than the obvious stupidity of lending money to millions knowing full well it may never be paid back? Sub Prime loans, they call them, in the usual sort of euphemism that they think will mask the truth. Do we need to look into the ever more evil speculation on commodities like maize, sorghum or wheat, now predominantly used to make fuel instead of food for starving millions all over the so-called Third World? Must we check up on the  speculative land deals in Alaska, where oil is present in munificent quantities and which are fully backed by U.S. Republican Vice-Presidential candidate all-wrapped-up-in-God-and-willing-to-make-war-on-Russia Sarah Palin?

Is it necessary here to go into the greed exhibited by everything that has surrounded the war in Irak, including some of the soldiers caught pilfering from their victims? Or Afghanistan? The ‘private armies’ that go to war in our names? The sale of arms by global corporations and private enterprise?

The list is long, endless. And so is the greed, the spiritual vacuum, exhibited by what seems to be the vast majority of the world’s leaders, be they in politics or business. They lead by their pockets, and we are forced to follow like lambs to the slaughter – and paying for it like the fools they take us for.

(c) Alexander Bewick 2008