A superb, blunt, honest and visionary speech by Poland’s foriegn minister here. Well worth reading both the actual speech text and The Economist analysis here.
Apologies for the bad formatting earlier.
1. Germany does not want to rule Europe. They don’t need to. Germany is such a major economic force that we want access to their markets, and so pander to them. Want to ignore the Germans? Fine. Don’t sell them stuff, buy their stuff, or ask for their money. They don’t do invasions anymore, other than with beachtowels.
Which is better value for money to the taxpayer? A back-of-the-envelope exercise.
I recently posted a remark on Facebook about how the Irish people have historically never cared that much about eliminating poverty in our society. I was attacked for that remark by a Fianna Failer who was, at the time, attacking Fine Gael for being right-wing. He suggested that it was a disgraceful thing to suggest, and that the Irish people did care. Of course, on paper, he’s correct. As a people, we talk an awful lot about poverty reduction. It’s just that at election time we always vote for the parties that promise to let us keep our money rather than give too much of it to people poorer than us.
The paralysis in US politics, signified by the failure of the Super Committee, is serious, so why not a serious and radical solution?
The International Monetary Fund has proposed a radical solution to the international debt crisis by suggesting that the entire population of the planet be hypnotised into forgetting that it borrowed or lent trillions in dollars and euro.