Mr. Fixit

The video of Tony Blair expressing his faith in the Eventual Euro, put down by many as a bid to be President of the EU, was a rum do. If one followed, or tried to follow it, the going was very soft, he was talking about a set up in which a President was not so much what you and I would understand as one, but more of either an Imperator Rex or Holy Roman Emperor.

I suspect that reality in this event would be while we were thinking it was more Holy Roman Emperor what we would be getting was Imperator Rex. Having got us into Iraq and Afghanistan and helped to create the pre-conditions for the Libyan debacle what might he do with Europe?

Operation Barbarossa II perhaps started by an incident at Radio Gleiwitz? Or another venture? As a non-historian he may not be aware of the 1812 business, but with Blair in charge that would be all too likely.

What really spooked me was when talking about the Euro and the Five Conditions he says airily, like you know what this is what it is all about if you know what I mean, it is essentially a political decision but we have to get the economics right. This more or less reflects the level of thinking.

The man really does believe that economics is something that can be “fixed” and “got right” by a small group of politicians and once fixed remains fixed for political purposes. Oh dear, well Conan Doyle did believe in fairies and was said to be a very clever man.

The trouble is that our Tony is not alone in this fantastic whimsy, when you look at that lot in Parliament (both chambers) they all seem to share this mad and bad idea.

The notion of global economics as some kind of potentially static system that can be “fixed” by politicians talking to their favourite bankers and celebrity media and financial friends is widely shared. The assumption is that if you can “fix” these things you can engage in whatever enterprise or creative destruction that takes your fancy.

The best any politicians trying to run a political entity can do is to attempt dealing with managing their end of it with the very limited means and knowledge that they have. If a week is a long time in politics it can be a lot longer than some matters that bear on the world economy and economics.

The idea of a world which is ever changing, difficult to predict and where the immediate past is more often uncertain and confused in reality than either those involved or any of the figures would have you believe is alien to Tony and his like.

They just do not understand any of it. This may be because most of them are lawyers with the quaint idea that if you make a law people will obey it.

Here are three links below for taste. One is a full story from the New York Times on shale gas matters; I did use the word confusion. Another is a very short one that people who do not share our master’s visions are making their own arrangements in Switzerland. Lastly for balance is a short view from the Left about who will be paying and who will be paid.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/us/26gas.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

http://golemxiv-credo.blogspot.com/2011/06/lovely-little-detail-from-switzerland.html

http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2011/06/25/asking-british-banks-to-take-greek-losses-is-the-same-as-the-treasury-bailing-out-greece/

Apparently the sale of UK tickets for the much touted Olympics has descended into a major fiasco. Meanwhile the party at the brewery has been cancelled for Health and Safety reasons.

Thank you Tony.