Tuesday, July 7, 2015

"If Only They Had Listened to Margaret Thatcher"

How the Greek horror show could have been avoided: 

"Had other European states listened to her warnings, the Continent would be a very different, less dangerous, more prosperous and much happier place today. Back in the Nineties, Mrs Thatcher’s enemies, both in Britain and on the Continent, dismissed what she had to say as shrill and bigoted."

"In fact, her analysis was compassionate and profound. Unlike almost everybody else, she understood that it was impossible to have a single currency without a single country as well. This is because a single currency requires the same borrowing and spending policies — and therefore an unchallenged political legitimacy — right across the single-currency area."

"Tragically, European leaders refused to believe these warnings. They were determined, at whatever human cost, to create a federal Europe and obliterate national boundaries."

"This explains their otherwise lunatic decision to impose a single currency across 19 different countries, each with its own history, set of institutions and special economic characteristics."

A little bit of truth would have saved a lot of misery. 

A little bit of truth and reality can still save human misery. 

That is the real lesson here. Not what what "could have" been done, as it's very easy to suggest changes about things that have already happened. Easy to battle with the past, harder to battle with the present and future.