1. From yahoo news yesterday - why it is not in the UK's economic interest to leave the EU.
http://news.yahoo.com/analysis-uk-trade-may-struggle-stand-still-eu-120635042.html
Comment: it does not have a lot of depth perhaps but covers a lot of the ground. As the authors are, I believe, American, it can be seen as reasonably neutral. I think that it is totally correct - but then I would, wouldn't I?
Because the EU is not amazing (in fact it is performing badly to very badly at the moment) does not make the alternatives better - in fact the choice can be a lot worse, as indicated here. As I am not a supporter of or believer in the unfettered market economy (see also yesterday's article and refer back again and again to the 2008 crash), I will immediately write off the arguments of the English Xenophobe Party (also known as the UKIP) and its Tory fellow travellers. See elsewhere on this blog for more detail.
Reforms are needed? Yes, see also below. But giving business the reforms that Cameron wants? Haven't we been giving business everything that it wants for the past 30 years? They always get what they want! We already have neo-liberalism. And we are in a confounded mess as a result. More scope to do more damage????
2. From the Pew Global Attitudes survey on European attitudes (in 8 countries - I wish they had surveyed all 27) to the EU, their economies usw.
http://www.pewglobal.org/2013/05/13/the-new-sick-man-of-europe-the-european-union/
Comment: pretty damning and it should serve as a wake-up call.
That said there is a bit of the two headed monster about some of the answers. Governments need to create more jobs, reduce unemployment and cut public spending? At one and the same time? Please tell me how this works in the real world? See Greece, see Spain where unemployment has rocketed as a result of cutting public spending (and note the number of people in Greece and Spain who think that this is the right thing to do!).
Eventually repeat to yourself the old axiom: you cannot deflate your way out of a recession! Yes we need investment from the private sector. Yes we need reindustrialisation (light engineering anyway). There is no way that we should be importing from China goods that we could easily manufacture here! Particularly when the manpower is available to do the work here!
The EU should be protecting its own workforce. Protectionism should be applied in the short term to get Europe moving again. The ridiculous cheap fixed exchange rate with China should be ended immediately! They should be forced to float their currency as everyone else has to, and be forced to compete. The killing of industrial jobs in Europe will only end when we enforce that policy!
Three things strike me as interesting in the Pew report.
Disappointing are the German attitudes, which do not coincide with those that I have met from people that I know or or whose opinions I have read here. It also says that government change in 2013 will not affect much, if anything. Merkel's CDU in a grand coalition with the SDP, or the CDU in a coalition with the the German Green Party are the most likely options. The latter might change things a bit, but not enough. German unemployment is still too high IMHO, and leaving things as they stand will not lead to any improvement. And if the rest of Europe is forced into continued austerity, Germany will eventually pay a price.
The second interesting thing, and a real positive, is that in all the countries asked, people want to keep the Euro. Sensible! Giving Europe back to the whims of currency speculators and the usual massive rip-offs at change bureaux makes absolutely no sense! And if the Peseta or Drachma came back, they would not just fall, they would plummet, creating another set of problems that would take years to resolve. High rates of inflation would ensue, and that would not help the unemployment crisis at all!
And thirdly - to my amazement - nobody sees the UK as the most arrogant nation in Europe. Quite why .... A country that turns up at every meeting of the EU and says "we're right, the rest of you are all wrong!" isn't arrogant? Not that they are usually right either. Not in the Euro, following its own path regardless, all-time record levels of private debt, critical of everyone else and heading into its third recession in four years ..... OK. Really good, eh?
Anyway the report is worth studying further. Even with the inconsistencies. Whether anyone will wake up and take some action, particularly where unemployment is concerned, I very much doubt, but like water dripping from a roof - someone might eventually take notice and do summat!
Postscript (December 31st, 2021). The first link no longer exists unfortunately.
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