In the previous post I looked at Varoufakis' fascinating post on the real goals of Schauble.
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2015/07/conversations-between-schauble-and.html
What seems to emerge is this: Grexit was in his plans all along, the minute Greeks had the temerity to vote for a party and a candidate that he didn't approve of.
However, Greece's exit also has some real political value for him. It's a warning of a bad example. Other euro countries can say 'There but for Schauble's Grace go I.'
For his part, Schauble has a plan for a political union-France has voted against this previously.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_European_Constitution_referendum,_2005
Yet after what happened to Greece, Schauble's wager is that other countries will not resist him in the future-and maybe won't even pull what the French did in 2005. True then Prime Minister Chirac had wanted a yes on the EU Constitution-but he committed the Unpardonable Sin of putting it up for a vote.
In Schauble's Europe democracy is irrelevant.
Meet the Fourth Reich. Same as the Third Reich.
Actually Hitller was elected.
"The Schäuble-Lamers Plan rests on two ideas: “Why not have a European budget commissioner” asked Schäuble and Lamers “with powers to reject national budgets if they do not correspond to the rules we jointly agreed?” “We also favour”, they added “a ‘Eurozone parliament’ comprising the MEPs of Eurozone countries to strengthen the democratic legitimacy of decisions affecting the single currency bloc.”
"The first point to raise about the Schäuble-Lamers Plan is that it is at odds with any notion of democratic federalism. A federal democracy, like Germany, the United States or Australia, is founded on the sovereignty of its citizens as reflected in the positive power of their representatives to legislate what must be done on the sovereign people’s behalf."
"In sharp contrast, the Schäuble-Lamers Plan envisages only negative powers: A Eurozonal budget overlord (possibly a glorified version of the Eurogroup’s President) equipped solely with negative, or veto, powers over national Parliaments. The problem with this is twofold. First, it would not help sufficiently to safeguard the Eurozone’s macro-economy. Secondly, it would violate basic principles of Western liberal democracy."
http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2015/07/17/dr-schaubles-plan-for-europe-do-europeans-approve-english-version-of-my-article-in-die-zeit/#more-9296
This is what I think that Hanns-Hermann Hoppe misses. Remember Hoppe claims that democracy is the God That Failed. He thinks monarchy did a much better job of protecting property rights. He thinks that the old Austrian-Hapsburg Empire was the high point for liberty thus far.
"First of all, Mr. Hoppe, thank you for taking the time to give us this interview. You have written in your new book, Der Wettbewerb der Gauner ("The Competition of Crooks"), that "We don't need a European super state, which the European Union is seeking to establish ? but rather a Europe and world consisting of hundreds or even thousands of tiny Liechtensteins and Singapores." Such a trend is not apparent at the moment, rather the opposite. Do things first have to get even worse — politically and economically - , before they get better again?"
"Unfortunately, I'm afraid so. Before that we'll probably have to experience national bankruptcy spreading through Portugal, Spain, Italy and ultimately on to Germany. Only then, I fear, will it become clear to everyone what many people already suspect now: that the EU is nothing but a gigantic machinery of income and wealth redistribution, from Germany and the Netherlands to Greece, Spain, Portugal, and so on. But that's not all. It will also become clear that the same insanity, the same mess, exists even within each individual country: redistribution from Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg to Bremen and Berlin, from Little Town A to Little Village B, from one company or industry to another, from Smith to Jones and so on — and always following the same perverse pattern: redistribution from the more productive countries, regions, places, companies and individuals to those that are less productive or not productive at all. Bankruptcy will bring all of this to light in a dramatic fashion."
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2015/07/conversations-between-schauble-and.html
What seems to emerge is this: Grexit was in his plans all along, the minute Greeks had the temerity to vote for a party and a candidate that he didn't approve of.
However, Greece's exit also has some real political value for him. It's a warning of a bad example. Other euro countries can say 'There but for Schauble's Grace go I.'
For his part, Schauble has a plan for a political union-France has voted against this previously.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_European_Constitution_referendum,_2005
Yet after what happened to Greece, Schauble's wager is that other countries will not resist him in the future-and maybe won't even pull what the French did in 2005. True then Prime Minister Chirac had wanted a yes on the EU Constitution-but he committed the Unpardonable Sin of putting it up for a vote.
In Schauble's Europe democracy is irrelevant.
Meet the Fourth Reich. Same as the Third Reich.
Actually Hitller was elected.
"The Schäuble-Lamers Plan rests on two ideas: “Why not have a European budget commissioner” asked Schäuble and Lamers “with powers to reject national budgets if they do not correspond to the rules we jointly agreed?” “We also favour”, they added “a ‘Eurozone parliament’ comprising the MEPs of Eurozone countries to strengthen the democratic legitimacy of decisions affecting the single currency bloc.”
"The first point to raise about the Schäuble-Lamers Plan is that it is at odds with any notion of democratic federalism. A federal democracy, like Germany, the United States or Australia, is founded on the sovereignty of its citizens as reflected in the positive power of their representatives to legislate what must be done on the sovereign people’s behalf."
"In sharp contrast, the Schäuble-Lamers Plan envisages only negative powers: A Eurozonal budget overlord (possibly a glorified version of the Eurogroup’s President) equipped solely with negative, or veto, powers over national Parliaments. The problem with this is twofold. First, it would not help sufficiently to safeguard the Eurozone’s macro-economy. Secondly, it would violate basic principles of Western liberal democracy."
http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2015/07/17/dr-schaubles-plan-for-europe-do-europeans-approve-english-version-of-my-article-in-die-zeit/#more-9296
This is what I think that Hanns-Hermann Hoppe misses. Remember Hoppe claims that democracy is the God That Failed. He thinks monarchy did a much better job of protecting property rights. He thinks that the old Austrian-Hapsburg Empire was the high point for liberty thus far.
"First of all, Mr. Hoppe, thank you for taking the time to give us this interview. You have written in your new book, Der Wettbewerb der Gauner ("The Competition of Crooks"), that "We don't need a European super state, which the European Union is seeking to establish ? but rather a Europe and world consisting of hundreds or even thousands of tiny Liechtensteins and Singapores." Such a trend is not apparent at the moment, rather the opposite. Do things first have to get even worse — politically and economically - , before they get better again?"
"Unfortunately, I'm afraid so. Before that we'll probably have to experience national bankruptcy spreading through Portugal, Spain, Italy and ultimately on to Germany. Only then, I fear, will it become clear to everyone what many people already suspect now: that the EU is nothing but a gigantic machinery of income and wealth redistribution, from Germany and the Netherlands to Greece, Spain, Portugal, and so on. But that's not all. It will also become clear that the same insanity, the same mess, exists even within each individual country: redistribution from Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg to Bremen and Berlin, from Little Town A to Little Village B, from one company or industry to another, from Smith to Jones and so on — and always following the same perverse pattern: redistribution from the more productive countries, regions, places, companies and individuals to those that are less productive or not productive at all. Bankruptcy will bring all of this to light in a dramatic fashion."
http://mises.org.br/Article.aspx?id=1325
This is what Hoppe misses: Schauble gets this. He has no intention of this being a 'transfer union.' To the contrary this is why he will make sure the EU is not a 'Federation' but an 'alliance of states' giving Hoppe the best of all worlds. Mr. Hoppe is not so perceptive it doesn't seem Both Morgan Warstler and Sumner get this:
"Dr Schäuble has been impressively consistent in his espousal of a political union that runs contrary to the basic principles of a democratic federation. In an article in Die Weltpublished on 15th June 1995, he dismissed the “academic debate” over whether Europe should be “…a federation or an alliance of states”. Was he right that there is no difference between a federation and an ‘alliance of states’? I submit that a failure to distinguish between the two constitutes a major threat to European democracy."
"One often forgotten fact about liberal democracies is that the legitimacy of its laws and constitution is determined not by its legal content but by politics. To claim, as Dr Schäuble did in 1995, and implied again in 2014, that it makes no difference whether the Eurozone is an alliance of sovereign states or a federal state is purposely to ignore that the latter can create political authority whereas the former cannot."
"An ‘alliance of states’ can, of course, come to mutually beneficial arrangements against a common aggressor (e.g. in the context of a defensive military alliance), or in agreeing to common industry standards, or even effect a free trade zone. But, such an alliance of sovereign states can never legitimately create an overlord with the right to strike down a states’ sovereignty, since there is no collective, alliance-wide sovereignty from which to draw the necessary political authority to do so."
"This is why the difference between a federation and an ‘alliance of states’ matters hugely. For while a federation replaces the sovereignty forfeited at the national or state level with a new-fangled sovereignty at the unitary, federal level, centralising power within an ‘alliance of states’ is, by definition, illegitimate, and lacks any sovereign body politic that can anoint it. Nor can any Euro Chamber of the European Parliament, itself lacking the power to legislate at will, legitimise the Budget Commissioner’s veto power over national Parliaments."
So Schauble gets Hoppe's worry. Meanwhile the inevitable Grexit-however, it's achieved-
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/00765226-2c94-11e5-8613-e7aedbb7bdb7.html#axzz3gLypB9uO
It will not just teach the Greeks a lesson for their defiance but serve as a lesson to the other Eurocrat countries:
"Back in May, in the sidelines of yet another Eurogroup meeting, I had had the privilege of a fascinating conversation with Dr Schäuble. We talked extensively both about Greece and regarding the future of the Eurozone. Later on that day, the Eurogroup meeting’s agenda included an item on future institutional changes to bolster the Eurozone. In that conversation, it was abundantly clear that Dr Schäuble’s Plan was the axis around which the majority of finance ministers were revolving."
"Though Grexit was not referred to directly in that Eurogroup meeting of nineteen ministers, plus the institutions’ leaders, veiled references were most certainly made to it. I heard a colleague say that member-states that cannot meet their commitments should not count on the Eurozone’s indivisibility, since reinforced discipline was of the essence. Some mentioned the importance of bestowing upon a permanent Eurogroup President the power to veto national budgets. Others discussed the need to convene a Euro Chamber of Parliamentarians to legitimise her or his authority. Echoes of Dr Schäuble’s Plan reverberated throughout the room."
"Judging from that Eurogroup conversation, and from my discussions with Germany’s Finance Minister, Grexit features in Dr Schäuble’s Plan as a crucial move that would kickstart the process of its implementation. A controlled escalation of the long suffering Greeks’ pains, intensified by shut banks while ameliorated by some humanitarian aid, was foreshadowed as the harbinger of the New Eurozone. On the one hand, the fate of the prodigal Greeks would act as a morality tale for governments toying with the idea of challenging the existing ‘rules’ (e.g. Italy), or of resisting the transfer of national sovereignty over budgets to the Eurogroup (e.g. France). On the other hand, the prospect of (limited) fiscal transfers (e.g. a closer banking union and a common unemployment benefit pool) would offer the requisite carrot (that smaller nations craved)."
And this is the thing that European leftists still largely put their hope in.
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2015/07/should-left-abandon-eu.html
The leftists in Britain, etc. don't understand the nature of the EU plan. They think it will be a federation but the truth is anything but-the better name for it is: the Fourth Reich.
UPDATE: Bill Mitchell aruges that 'The European Project is Dead"
My only adding to that is to say 'The European Project-Should Be-Dead.'
"An ‘alliance of states’ can, of course, come to mutually beneficial arrangements against a common aggressor (e.g. in the context of a defensive military alliance), or in agreeing to common industry standards, or even effect a free trade zone. But, such an alliance of sovereign states can never legitimately create an overlord with the right to strike down a states’ sovereignty, since there is no collective, alliance-wide sovereignty from which to draw the necessary political authority to do so."
"This is why the difference between a federation and an ‘alliance of states’ matters hugely. For while a federation replaces the sovereignty forfeited at the national or state level with a new-fangled sovereignty at the unitary, federal level, centralising power within an ‘alliance of states’ is, by definition, illegitimate, and lacks any sovereign body politic that can anoint it. Nor can any Euro Chamber of the European Parliament, itself lacking the power to legislate at will, legitimise the Budget Commissioner’s veto power over national Parliaments."
So Schauble gets Hoppe's worry. Meanwhile the inevitable Grexit-however, it's achieved-
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/00765226-2c94-11e5-8613-e7aedbb7bdb7.html#axzz3gLypB9uO
It will not just teach the Greeks a lesson for their defiance but serve as a lesson to the other Eurocrat countries:
"Back in May, in the sidelines of yet another Eurogroup meeting, I had had the privilege of a fascinating conversation with Dr Schäuble. We talked extensively both about Greece and regarding the future of the Eurozone. Later on that day, the Eurogroup meeting’s agenda included an item on future institutional changes to bolster the Eurozone. In that conversation, it was abundantly clear that Dr Schäuble’s Plan was the axis around which the majority of finance ministers were revolving."
"Though Grexit was not referred to directly in that Eurogroup meeting of nineteen ministers, plus the institutions’ leaders, veiled references were most certainly made to it. I heard a colleague say that member-states that cannot meet their commitments should not count on the Eurozone’s indivisibility, since reinforced discipline was of the essence. Some mentioned the importance of bestowing upon a permanent Eurogroup President the power to veto national budgets. Others discussed the need to convene a Euro Chamber of Parliamentarians to legitimise her or his authority. Echoes of Dr Schäuble’s Plan reverberated throughout the room."
"Judging from that Eurogroup conversation, and from my discussions with Germany’s Finance Minister, Grexit features in Dr Schäuble’s Plan as a crucial move that would kickstart the process of its implementation. A controlled escalation of the long suffering Greeks’ pains, intensified by shut banks while ameliorated by some humanitarian aid, was foreshadowed as the harbinger of the New Eurozone. On the one hand, the fate of the prodigal Greeks would act as a morality tale for governments toying with the idea of challenging the existing ‘rules’ (e.g. Italy), or of resisting the transfer of national sovereignty over budgets to the Eurogroup (e.g. France). On the other hand, the prospect of (limited) fiscal transfers (e.g. a closer banking union and a common unemployment benefit pool) would offer the requisite carrot (that smaller nations craved)."
And this is the thing that European leftists still largely put their hope in.
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2015/07/should-left-abandon-eu.html
The leftists in Britain, etc. don't understand the nature of the EU plan. They think it will be a federation but the truth is anything but-the better name for it is: the Fourth Reich.
UPDATE: Bill Mitchell aruges that 'The European Project is Dead"
My only adding to that is to say 'The European Project-Should Be-Dead.'
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