Hello America! Greetings from Wales in the UK. How are things in the colonies these days? Getting along OK without us? Anyway, back to the nature of the debate. We have slightly different problems to you. Over here most people work and shop within 10 miles of where they live, so the slow death of the motorcar won't affect us as quickly as yourselves. What we have is a massive & complicated debt problem. Ireland (a little neighbour of ours just off our west coast) has just had it's S & P credit rating downgraded for the second time in three months. They belong to a 'Mickey Mouse' currency called the Euro (which, daft as we are and in the EU with them, we weren't daft enough to join a false currency). Then we have the Baltic states - Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. Latvia is a basket case. It will devalue it's currency some time this week as well as slash public sector pay. It is on the verge of total collapse financially and socially ( http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/5438615/Latvian-debt-crisis-shakes- Eastern-Europe.html and http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/5446658/European-banks-in-spotlight -as-Baltic-crisis-hits-Sweden.html ). Their neighbours (Lithuania and Estonia) are heavily entwined with them and also financially in ruins. In turn, Scandanavian banks - particularly Sweden, are heavily exposed and underwriting them in turn is Switzerland and Germany. A little bit further over is Ukraine - also on the verge of collapse and serious social upheavel. The only people who are willing to help Ukraine are the Russians - but only if they move out of the west's sphere of influence into theirs (similar deal on the table for the Baltic states. The re-birth of the USSR perhaps?) And then in our country we have neo-nazis winning electoral respectability and our two main poiltical parties mired in sleaze and financial scandal. So over here in Europe, it's like a giant game of Jenga. Only we're playing it drunk, in blindfolds, with boxing gloves.
Hello America! Greetings from Wales in the UK. How are things in the colonies these days? Getting along OK without us?
Anyway, back to the nature of the debate.
We have slightly different problems to you. Over here most people work and shop within 10 miles of where they live, so the slow death of the motorcar won't affect us as quickly as yourselves.
What we have is a massive & complicated debt problem.
Ireland (a little neighbour of ours just off our west coast) has just had it's S & P credit rating downgraded for the second time in three months. They belong to a 'Mickey Mouse' currency called the Euro (which, daft as we are and in the EU with them, we weren't daft enough to join a false currency). Then we have the Baltic states - Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. Latvia is a basket case. It will devalue it's currency some time this week as well as slash public sector pay. It is on the verge of total collapse financially and socially ( http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/5438615/Latvian-debt-crisis-shakes- Eastern-Europe.html and http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/5446658/European-banks-in-spotlight -as-Baltic-crisis-hits-Sweden.html ). Their neighbours (Lithuania and Estonia) are heavily entwined with them and also financially in ruins. In turn, Scandanavian banks - particularly Sweden, are heavily exposed and underwriting them in turn is Switzerland and Germany. A little bit further over is Ukraine - also on the verge of collapse and serious social upheavel. The only people who are willing to help Ukraine are the Russians - but only if they move out of the west's sphere of influence into theirs (similar deal on the table for the Baltic states. The re-birth of the USSR perhaps?) And then in our country we have neo-nazis winning electoral respectability and our two main poiltical parties mired in sleaze and financial scandal.
So over here in Europe, it's like a giant game of Jenga. Only we're playing it drunk, in blindfolds, with boxing gloves.
They belong to a 'Mickey Mouse' currency called the Euro (which, daft as we are and in the EU with them, we weren't daft enough to join a false currency).
lol In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
