From today's FT:
... I once asserted, at a conference on the euro in December 1998, that currency unions were unbreakable because the costs to disentangling the accounts would be prohibitive.
Vaclav Klaus was there, and replied: “Nonsense. When Czechoslovakia split in two, we separated the accounts in an afternoon.”
Jeffrey Frankel, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, US
There's an interesting but depressing article here, which is all the more interesting for what it doesn't say as for what it does. This part, however, sets me off on a tangent:
Klaus signed the EU reform Lisbon treaty on Tuesday after the Constitutional Court (US) ruled that it is in line with the Czech constitutional order, and after the EU met his demand for an opt-out for Czechs from the Charter of Fundamental Rights, part of the Lisbon treaty. Klaus demanded it in fears that the charter might enable the transferred Germans to claim their former property on Czech soil, confiscated from them on the basis of the post-war Benes decrees...
As I said in my previous post:
... the only pre-requisite for land ownership is a state to guarantee title*; and once you have a state you have land ownership (even if the land belongs to 'the state' or is earmarked as common land). Land-ownership and the state are two sides of the same coin.
So this is an excellent example of land-ownership and the (sovereign) state being two sides of the same coin. The Czechs are giving up part of/a lot of** their "sovereignty" and with it are giving up the right to guarantee the title to land that their state had granted to others under the Benes decree.
Those pesky Sudeten Germans might now find that a higher 'state' (i.e. the EU) is now guaranteeing their title to that land, which trumps the Czech government's guarantee. OK, in practice, I'd expect them to be compensated in cash rather than actual Czechs being physically evicted, but the principle stands.
* Unlike any other form of 'property' which can only arise from an individual's efforts and free exchanges with other individuals.
** Delete according to taste.
From the BBC:
Czech President Vaclav Klaus has signed the European Union's Lisbon Treaty, the final step in its ratification....
I genuinely feel a bit depressed now.
From today's FT:
Sir, Oh, please, please, please – let Tony Barber's 'blog (June 16) about Gordon Brown becoming president of the European Union come true! He would destroy this institution as thoroughly and surely as he has destroyed the UK in the years of his dismal reign first as chancellor and then as prime minister.
Maybe somebody should propose Vaclav Klaus for vice-president to get this most necessary job done faster.
Frank Williams, Prague, Czech Republic.
A recent editorial in The Grauniad said "... let us have a permanent EU president. Mr Klaus could not be making a more persuasive case for one."
Funnily enough, the readers of this largely centre-right 'blog agreed. The response to the question "Should we have a permanent EU President?" was as follows:
Yes - provided Vaclav Klaus gets the job - 82%
No - let's stick with rotation - 12%
Yes - provided Vaclav Klaus doesn't get the job - 5%
Thanks to everybody who voted, agreed it would be nicer to knock the EU on the head, but better a small step in the right direction than none at all.
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OK. This week's loaded question is "What kind of economic system would you prefer?", assuming it were a straight choice between "One that makes it easier to become wealthy." and "One that makes it easier to stay wealthy."
Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.
The responses to the question "How much alcohol do you drink every week?" were as follows:
Not enough - 44%
About the right amount - 36%
Too much - 7%
I am either a liar or a killjoy - 13%
So there we have it - at least 80% of us drink no more than necessary. Seeing as my survey is every bit as scientific as anything the government puts out, that'll do me. Thanks to everybody who voted.
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Prompted by this in yesterday's Guardian editorial: "Better still, let us have a permanent EU president. Mr Klaus could not be making a more persuasive case for one", The Great Simpleton commented "I quite like this idea of a permanent EU President. I nominate Vaclav Klaus. He could just carry on, as he is doing such a great job."
That sounds like a good idea to me, vote here or in the sidebar.
Christina Speight alerted me to The Grauniad's editorial of yesterday, entitled The Dud Czech, the highlight of which is probably this:
Faced with growing evidence that scientists have understated climate change, Mr Klaus told a conference of climate change deniers at the weekend that Europe was being too alarmist. If this is leadership, the EU's rotating chair cannot swivel fast enough. Better still, let us have a permanent EU president. Mr Klaus could not be making a more persuasive case for one.
Cool. We're democrats, and we'll abide by the pre-agreed rules unless we're unhappy with the outcome, in which case we'll keep changing the rules in favour of an ever smaller number of True Believers until one day one of us can run the show single-handedly, just like dictators of yore. While skim-reading this diatribe, my eye chanced upon this:
Monbiot's royal flush: Top 10 climate change deniers.
... which is well worth a read. Apart from Sarah Palin, I have no idea what the Yanks on the list may have done to merit inclusion, and while I applaud Melanie Phillips' rabid Zionism, she would appear to be motivated primarily by bitterness, but as it happens, I have awarded four of the other five "rocks" for services to MMGW-Myth debunking (click labels below) and have often referred to Christopher Booker's countless - and so far futile - attempts to explain the difference between white asbestos (relatively harmless, once in situ) and blue or brown asbestos (nasty stuff that was banned over twenty years ago). So clearly these people have managed to really get under The Establishment's skin, and here's hoping that they keep up the good work in future.
Here's part two of that letter
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Equally dubious and illogical is [Vaclav Klaus'] conclusion that the current economic crisis was an “unavoidable consequence” of immodest and over-confident politicians “playing” the market. The roots of the current economic crisis lie in the collapse of the US sub-prime housing market and the subsequent fall-out of structured investment products created from these underlying housing loans. If anything, it was the lack of regulation and investor understanding of these complex structures that is the key to the crisis. His failure even to grasp the roots of the crisis is downright Palinesque; and his cure, which is to “repeal various labour, environmental, social, health, and other standards” is completely batty.
President Klaus displays the defining attitude that got us into this mess in the first place. His seemingly unquestionable faith in the markets to take care of themselves, with sweeping claims such as “we always need more of markets and less of government intervention”, just does not make sense, when it was the market’s failure to curb excessive leverage and speculation that led to the current financial crisis. We need more than just sound bites, Mr Klaus.
Calvin Quek, Singapore.
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VK has nailed this one as well; in the Anglosphere and Spain, politicians knew that rising house prices give an illusion of ever rising wealth so did their best to make sure they happened, so VK is quite right to say that "Their attempts to blame the market, instead of blaming themselves, are unacceptable and should be resolutely rejected."
It is relatively easy to stoke a house-price bubble - all you need is gradually falling interest rates, very restricted supply* and a complete lack of sensible banking supervision** - job done. The letter writer appears to have fallen for the Nulab line that we should blame the Yanks and the banks.*
What a twat, franky.
* The restricted supply is the opposite of free markets, isn't it? But UK parties always promise to restrict supply (all of their manifestos include some waffle about 'protecting the Greenbelt', AFAIAA) to gain the votes of the NIMBYs, which is the vast majority of voters.
** I accept that there was "lack of investor understanding of these complex products", but the overall picture was pretty clear. Total consumer debt doubled in ten years and house prices trebled, did that not set alarm bells ringing?
Here's part one of a letter that the FT cheerfully printed yesterday, it appears that 'they' (whoever 'they' are) will go to any lengths to vilify Vaclav Klaus:
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Sir, What planet does the president of the Czech Republic refer to (“Do not tie the markets – free them”, January 7) when he claims that “the global climate is basically not changing”? Is he denying the documented evidence provided by climatologists that point to a 0.75 deg C increase in global temperatures over the past 100 years? Has Vaclav Klaus not read the declarations by scientists from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which stated in February 2007 that “human actions are very likely the cause of global warming”? Perhaps it might be the planet Mars that he speaks of, because his conclusions that climate change “alarmists” are responsible for “restraining our freedom” is downright otherworldly. How President Klaus downplays the evidence for global climate change, while simultaneously claiming that humans have proved themselves to be adaptable to climate change even if it were true, is truly a marvellous example of double-talk...
Calvin Quek, Singapore
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What sort of dumbass rhetorical questions are those? I guess that the answers are;
- VK is talking about Planet Earth;
- I don't think that VK is disputing a modest rise in average temperatures of, er, 0.0075 deg C per annum over the past century. His exact words were "The global climate is basically not changing" which seems about right to me, although it's been bloody cold recently, masking the "underlying warming trend"*;
- whether VK has read the IPCC document is neither here nor. I am sure he has had this declaration rammed down his throat often enough;
- I am sure that VK is capable of differentiating between Earth and Mars, which has had its own global warming as it happens;
- the global warmenists quite clearly are trying to restrain our freedoms, it's all 'don't do this, don't do that' which sounds to me like, er, restraining freedoms;
- as to whether humans can adapt, let me think about that briefly - Eskimos manage and Kalahari Bushmen manage; Stockholm manages and Singapore manages; in winter we turn up the heating and put a jumper on; in summer we turn it off and wear T-shirts - so yes, I think it's fair to say that "humans have proved themselves to be adaptable to climate change"
Why does the FT print this shit?
Don't answer that.
* My underlying-warming-trend-o-meter is up by 180 results since Wednesday. And I'm still number 1. Yippee!
Via Julia M in the comments to my previous post, surprise surprise, The Graun has laid into Vaclav Klaus.
My personal highlights are this:
Next, the statement has to be retracted when it fails to chime with the message from Paris, which has reluctantly ceded the EU's presidency to Prague.
1. 'Paris' is perfectly entitled to say what it likes, as is 'Prague', why should 'Prague' be forced to retract something because 'Paris' isn't happy with it?
2. "...reluctantly ceded ..."??? WTF, rules is rules, France held the six-month rotating presidency of the Council Of The European Union for, er, six months, as laid down in the rules. There's no "ceding" involved, "reluctant" or otherwise.
... and this ...
"And then an aristocrat fond of bow ties (Czech foreign minister Karel Schwarzenberg) leads a mission aimed at brokering a ceasefire ..."
FFS, has The Graun ever described Sarkozy as "The son of a Hungarian immigrant and a French mother of Greek Jewish origin who is fond of built-up platform shoes"?
... and this ...
"Prague's patent bias towards Israel is consistent with both its own foreign policy and the direction in which the union has been heading for some time."
1. Isn't the first part a tautology? You would expect Czech's foreign policy to be consistent with its patent bias and vice versa, or have I missed something?
2. If "Prague's patent bias ... is consistent with ... the direction in which the union has been heading...", then that's a good thing, isn't it?
On a pedantic note, as Wiki explains:
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Presidency of the Council of the European Union is the responsibility [sic] for the functioning of the Council of the European Union which is rotated between European Union member states every six months. There is no single president but rather the task is undertaken by an entire national government, hence that state influences the direction of European Union policy during its term. Although it rotates every six months...
The Presidency, which is sometimes informally called the EU Presidency ...
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Now let's compare and contrast the different descriptions of Nicolas Sarkozy and Vaclav Klaus on the official EU website:
On 21 December 2008, an article entitled Sarkozy to attend final summit as EU president continually refers to him as such: "French President Nicolas Sarkozy arrives here Monday for a Brazil-EU summit focusing on the financial crisis and climate change as he prepares to hand over the reins of the EU presidency. Monday's summit and his two-day stay in Rio de Janeiro will be his last as EU president, before handing the rotating position on to the Czech Republic... Tuesday will see Sarkozy ditch his role as EU president and hold more meetings ..."
Whereas on 1 January 2009, there is an article entitled Czechs take over EU helm, Slovaks embrace euro, which explains (somewhat more correctly) that "The two parts of what used to be Czechoslovakia took European Union centre-stage Thursday as the Czech Republic assumed the EU presidency..."
That is how slippery these bastards are. It's difficult to accuse them of downplaying Vaclav Klaus' role, because they are now being (more) accurate, and if we accuse them of overplaying the role of rabid EUphile (i.e. French imperialist) Nicolas Sarkozy they'll say "Oh, that's all in the past". The whole of the media are just as guilty of this of course, I hope that now I've pointed this out you'll start to notice it yourself.
Excerpt from a longer version at EUReferendum:
Brian Crowley MEP: With all respect, Mr. President, you will not tell me what the Irish think. As an Irishman, I know it best.
President Vaclav Klaus: I do not speculate about what the Irish think. I state the only measurable data which were proved by the referendum.
... concluding with ...
Hans-Gert Pöttering: ... In the conclusion - and I want to leave this room in good terms - I would like to say that it is more than unacceptable, if you compare us, compare us with the Soviet Union. We are all deeply rooted in our countries and our constituencies. We are concerned about freedom and reconciliation in Europe, we are good willing, not naïve.
President Vaclav Klaus: I did not compare you with the Soviet Union, I did not mention the word[s] "Soviet Union". I only said that I have not experienced such an atmosphere, such style of debate in the past 19 years in the Czech Republic, really.
Thanks to Christina Speight for emailing me the link.
From today's FT, with no apparent deliberate irony:
Micheál Martin, Irish foreign minister, said "the very political [i.e. EU-sceptic] comments" Mr Klaus made at a dinner given by Declan Ganley, a leading campaigner against the [Lisbon] treaty, were "an inappropriate intervention" at a time when the "Irish government is engaged in discussions with our partners in the European Union".
* That should read "Certain members of Irish government ...", of course.
That's a rather promising headline in The Sunday Times, but read on a bit, and it says 'In the short term, Brown will press ahead with Britain’s own ratification process.'
Why, exactly?
As ever, It's Vaclav Klaus who gets it spot on '... the Czech president ... declared the entire project “finished”. “Ratification cannot be continued,” he said.'
He ended a recent article in the FT with this:
"As a witness to today's worldwide debate on climate change, I suggest the following:
■Small climate changes do not demand far-reaching restrictive measures
■Any suppression of freedom and democracy should be avoided
■Instead of organising people from above, let us allow everyone to live as he wants
■Let us resist the politicisation of science and oppose the term "scientific consensus", which is always achieved only by a loud minority, never by a silent majority
■Instead of speaking about "the environment", let us be attentive to it in our personal behaviour
■Let us be humble but confident in the spontaneous evolution of human society. Let us trust its rationality and not try to slow it down or divert it in any direction
■Let us not scare ourselves with catastrophic forecasts, or use them to defend and promote irrational interventions in human lives."
Poetry, pure poetry.
