The Eurozone ought to break up The euro is on the face of it, an undemocratic project. This is in the sense that a largely unaccountable international bank has been handed nominal control of interest rates and money in a huge swathe of continental Europe. This co-ordination of monetary policy has been tied to a relatively strict regime of floating exchange rates with no allowed exchange controls or intervention, no zone-wide tax system to redistribute money from richer to poorer areas, and no flexibility to allow inflation to edge up if growth or unemployment are worries. Initially, the programme was invested with a certain amount of democratic accountability in theory in that fiscal policy, and the issuing of government debt was to be coordinated by governments that considered themselves responsible to their peoples. Quite how a political elite elected largely by forms of proportional representation that keep the same people and attitudes in charge all the time could come to view itse...
This is a collection of personal and largely unedited observations covering the years from 2006 to now; I assert my copyright but am fine with links and footnotes. Some posts are obviously much more researched than others, and any errors are wholly mine except where I have innocently disseminated or linked to other bloggers or commentators.