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Cherry Picking Democracy
Posted by on July 24, 2012
My post Democracy – Do we really have it?, stated my concern over ‘democracy’ being ‘Majority Tyranny’, perhaps I should have addressed some concern over a ‘Minority Tyranny’. Certainly the popular right-wing media seem to advocate that such minority tyranny as exercised by trade unions needs to be curbed.
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EUmenides
Posted by on February 24, 2012
Not only a tragedy for Greece but a Greek Tragedy. The Eumenides appear in the final part of The Orestian Trilogy, a Greek tragedy written by Aeschylus around 500BC. The Eumenides was a euphemistic name given by the Greeks to the Erinyes (Furies:Latin). Eumenides means ‘the benevolent ones‘ and was a term used by the Greeks to avoid invoking the wrath of the Erinyes (the avengers of wrong).
Greek Tragedy is a literary composition in which a central character, acting as the tragic protagonist or hero, suffers some serious misfortune which is not accidental thus rendering it meaningless, but is logically connected with the central character’s actions. Greek Tragedy stresses the vulnerability of human beings whose suffering is brought on by a combination of human and divine actions, but is generally undeserved with regard to its harshness.
Euronomics
Posted by on December 30, 2011
There is a view (especially in France) that the enemies of the Euro are the AS (Anglo-Saxons). In my opinion this is not so. I do not believe the AS are against the Euro but, in common with the Austrian School of Economics, they are against its inherent flaws. As Martin Feldstein points out in his article ‘The French Don’t Get It. The French government just doesn’t seem to understand the real implications of the euro. French officials apparently don’t recognize the importance of the fact that Britain is outside the eurozone, and therefore has its own currency, which means that there is no risk that Britain will default on its debt. By contrast, the French government and the French central bank cannot create euros. There is a second reason why the British situation is less risky than that of France. Britain can reduce its current-account deficit by causing the British pound to weaken relative to the dollar and the euro, which the French, again, cannot do without their own currency. The eurozone fiscal deficits and current-account deficits are now the most obvious symptoms of the euro’s failure. But the credit crisis in Europe, and the weakness of eurozone banks, may be even more important. The persistent unemployment differentials within the eurozone are yet another reflection of the adverse effect of imposing a single currency and a single monetary policy on a heterogeneous group of countries. These comments may be valid but in making the ‘French connection’, either Feldstein hasn’t been following recent European events very well, or he simply doesn’t understand the nature of the Anglo/French relationship, which is based on mutual distrust. Read more of this post
A Peace of Keynes – The Cake
Posted by on November 29, 2011
John Maynard Keynes was temporarily attached to the British Treasury during the First World War and was their official representative at the Paris Peace Conference up to June 7, 1919; he also sat as deputy for the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the Supreme Economic Council. He resigned from these positions when it became evident that there was no hope of substantial modification in the draft Terms of Peace. The grounds of his objection to the Treaty, or rather to the whole policy of the Conference towards the economic problems of Europe, are contained in his book THE ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF THE PEACE. Written in 1919, when Keynes was 36 years old, this book brought him fame. It is, in part, condensed in the following, which covers Keynes’ deliberations on the accumulation and division of wealth leading up the First World War and the impact that war may have on it. Read more of this post
