Where’s bill today?
No blog today as I am travelling to the lands of austerity. Normal service will resume on Thursday (probably).
Administrative announcements
No blog today as I am travelling to the lands of austerity. Normal service will resume on Thursday (probably).
I am travelling today and so no complete blog for today. But …
I am travelling today and the blog will be back sometime tomorrow. Why and where?
Tomorrow (Thursday, June 24, 2010) I am turning off an old server that has been hosting the blog and turning on a new server which will provide faster delivery of pages and will be more reliable.
A brief blog about the Eurozone today given I am travelling later on in the morning (Thursday, US time). Events in recent days are further exposing the absurd logic inherent in the design of the monetary system arrangements that the EMU member nations signed up for. The sovereign debt crisis that has so far be confined to Greece is now spreading to other member nations (Portugal and Spain). Further, the concerns over sovereign risk are now spreading into the commerical banking system and the logical extension of that are bank runs and a closure of the entire payments system. The reluctance to provide any EMU support for the beleagured Greece and the posturing by Germany is now being overtaken by these events in recent days. The initial “bailout” offer to Greece that took so long for the EMU bosses to make – given it rendered their claims to have constructed a stable sustainable monetary system absurd – now pales into insignificance. Much more support will be required and soon. But even that will not solve the structural flaws in their system. They would be better just abandoning it and maintaining political ties to stop them invading each other. After all, it was the tensions after the Second World War that have, in no small part, driven these flawed attempts at union anyway.
Today’s blog is being posted earlier than usual. I am travelling today and so time is short.
Dear All
Been down, but now back on air … sounds like the opening of a blues song …