FrenchSocialist made an apparition in yesterday's story. I hope s/he will join us here again to give another perspective on this. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
I loved Le Monde's report yesterday. The badinage of French politicians is a delight -- "A trop fréquenter les Corréziens, on se chiraquise" stung le depute-maire de Tulle (M Hollande) so deliciously
((the key for non-Frogs is that Chirac claims his ancestral home in the Correze, which is also the department which Hollande represents)
As to Blairism , I'm not sure exactly what it stands for. The UK is currently undergoing a Keynesian binge engineered by Gordon Brown, so it's not exactly as if it's only the private sector that's dynamic. As the WSJ pointed out not long ago, the UK created mostly public sector jobs when compared to France...
And I am curious to see how long the British tolerance for foreign ownership of assets and industries will last when the country becomes a serious importer of oil and gas.
I had sympathy for Blair, but he lost it when he never actually took any risk to fight for Europe as he said all along he would, and then when he compiunded that by choosing Bush over Europe on Iraq. Maybe that's what the country wants, but that's not showing leadership, then. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
Why? Some surmise Carlyle was dangled in front of him on Iraq, but on both Iraq and Europe I see the influence of Rupert Murdoch, whose opinions seem to have directed Blair's policies in these cases pretty closely.
On Iraq, I initially thought he was courageous (to fight for some principles, and to try to have a positive influence on Bushco, against his public opinion), but with all the information that has come out it just appears that he sold his soul to the devil and was bitten in return - and he knew it. It just felt safer to be irrelevant on the side of Americans than irrelevant amongst those strange creatures across the Channel... (of course, if Chirac and Blair had found the courage to speak to each other instead of past each other, they would have found they DID have some influence jointly. And that lesson does not seem to have been leanrt yet, even if on Iran they did a lot better) In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
