The Londoner

By Sikander Hayat  The problem with the Euro is that it treats a country like Greece as if it is the same as Germany in terms of its economy, politics, culture and other aspects of its social fabric. We know very well that this is not the case as countries and cultures acquire ways of doing things in their own way. Greece cannot be turned into Germany, Germany cannot be turned into Greece and yet the single currency euro tries to do just that. Since 2008, Greece's economy has gone down 25%, loosing millions of jobs, forcing citizens to emigrate, pension schemes to collapse, loss of sovereignty and directly leading to the rise of ultra right and ultra left wing political parties. Germany is widely blamed by the Greek for their country's problems. People of Greece invoke second world war and occupation by Nazi Germany as an earlier example of German belligerence . Greeks argue that what Germans did militarily during the second world war , they are now doing to ...

By Sikander Hayat 23rd of the June 2016 will always be remembered by the people of United Kingdom . People have spoken and they want out. United Kingdom is out of the EU and Pound is down to the value it has not seen in many decades. This is the most momentous and seismic event after 1945. What is going to happen is anyone's guess as most people are coming to grips with the new reality. The sheer weight of immigration forced British people to leave European Union . In the short to medium term, British economy will come under great stress from the uncertainty created by the Brexit. There is a danger that jobs will be moved from London to European Union centres and London may lose a lot of business to rival cities within the Union. It will take at least two years for the negotiations to conclude between UK and EU on terms of exit. David Cameron has resigned but will stay on till October when new PM will be selected who will trigger article 50. Article 50 st...

The crab-like performance of the last two years is not easy to explain – a third year of the same would be . The sales have started early this year, which means the economy is struggling . Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA On the Saturday before Christmas the shop windows told their own story. Up to 50% off at Hobbs. Discounts of 60% at LK Bennett. Similar reductions at French Connection and the Gap . The sales started early this year and that means the economy is struggling. Fearful of being left with large amounts of unsold stock, retailers are slashing prices to attract hard-up consumers. It was the same a year ago. Hopes of recovery have been dashed in 2012, a year in which the UK has gone nowhere fast. Interest rates, gross domestic product and house prices are where they were in January. The economy is not collapsing but it is not growing either. For the past two years it has gone sideways, and the expectation at the Bank of England and the Treasury is that...

Mervyn King perhaps under-estimates, as many do in this country, the political will that exists on the Continent for keeping the euro show on the road. You might imagine central bankers would have lost their capacity for surprise, after almost four years in which they have made increasingly unconventional and sometimes desperate moves to rescue the world economy. But testifying before a committee of the European Parliament earlier this week, Mario Draghi , the head of the European Central Bank , once again showed his huge talent for knocking an audience back on its heels with one simple sentence. With America on the edge of a fiscal cliff, Japan seemingly permanently paralysed, and China coping with a steeper than expected slowdown, he was asked where in the world there was any glimmer of economic hope.  “The eurozone,” he replied. Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he?   After all, he is the man who sai...

What Is Wrong With British Economy ? By Sikander Hayat Well, the economic situation is pretty dire at the moment. Double dip recession & worst have visited UK with looming referendum on Scottish independence in 2014 makes matter even worse. If Scotland goes ahead & becomes an independent nation , that will take away a huge chunk of territory, prestige & oil reserves from UK . Jobs are pretty scarce where hard working people all around the country are trying to make ends meet with their limited resources. Times are hard but government is not coming up with any answers & it seems that nobody in the corridors of powers knows the answer to the troubles. Lack of demand in the economy is not being offset by the increasing exports resulting in decreased output & more people working part time waiting for the good times to come back. It seems that we need to find new markets for our products and these markets are not likely to be in Europe for next fe...

Can The Last Taxpayer Leaving France Please Turn Out The Lights? The fiscal frenzy that has seized French socialists is not only grinding France ’s economy to a halt; it is also attacking the very foundations of French society by destroying entrepreneurship and responsibility. Taxes are raining down on French citizens , and the promised shelters often disappear before they have even been introduced.   The French government’ s 2013 finance bill has announced confiscatory tax rates on incomes and capital gains, and payroll taxes will be increased as well. But the socialists are shooting themselves in the foot, as such tax rates will destroy wealth and drive out entrepreneurs, capital, businesses, and young people . Thus, tax revenues will ultimately not rise but fall. The message could not be clearer: The number of requests by French citizens to leave France are suddenly...

In the course of making an argument about the coming collapse of China and Russia , Jackson Diehl made a rather forceful statement about Russia’s “deindustrialiation” under the malignant influence of Vladimir Putin.  I don’t want to get pulled into a larger discussion about the accuracy of Diehl’s thesis, needless to say I’m skeptical that both China and Russia will collapse in the near future, but I did want to focus in on his comment on the supposed death of industrial Russia (emphasis added): For Russia, the dilemma is summed up in the prices of oil and gas, and the role those two commodities have come to play during the Putin era. When Putin first took office in 1999, oil and gas earned less than half of Russia’s export revenue. Now that share is more than two-thirds. In part this increase is due to rising prices and production, but Russia has also deindustrialized under Putin . According to a report in Business New Europe, this year the country ...

David Cameron signs up to more joint military operations with Europe Under a deal reached in Brussels yesterday, leaders of all 27 EU countries promised to “strengthen” Europe’s ability to deploy troops “rapidly and effectively” in any future crisis. They committed to “systematically considering cooperation” across Europe whenever EU member states begin drawing up their national defence plans. Downing Street sources said the Prime Minister was “entirely happy” with the new arrangements. Britain already has a formal treaty with France for sharing defence capabilities, such aircraft carrier capacity. Government sources said the new agreement would pave the way for Britain to extend this collaboration beyond France to other countries. However, the Prime Minister immediately faced a backlash from his own Conservative MPs, who warned it was the first step to creating a European army. Th...

Political Economy Finest Hour for Draghi and Europe Who is Europe’s most powerful man? If one phrased the question differently — who is Europe’s most powerful person? — the answer might well be Angela Merkel. But the deliberate use of the masculine excludes the German chancellor, leaving the field open to Mario Draghi. This answer can, of course, be disputed. How can one compare power in economics with power in, say, religion? Is it possible to rank the technocratic European Central Bank boss on the same scale, for example, as the pope? The best place to start is with an attempt to understand what power is. The British philosopher Bertrand Russell said it was the production of intended effects. By contrast, Steven Lukes, one of the top contemporary power theorists, said in an interview last week that power was the capacity to make a difference in a manner that is significant. What’s appealing about the way that Mr. Lukes, a professor of sociolo...

Italy’s latest mess has shocked European leaders. But their problems run even deeper THE resignation of Mario Monti as Italy’s prime minister, provoked by Silvio Berlusconi’s attempt to return to power, is worrying Europe’s chancelleries. It again raises questions about Italy’s ability to reform and the capacity of the euro to survive. And it stirs fears of self-serving politicians who incite voters against the European project. Mr Berlusconi’s electoral strategy seems to be to pin Italy’s problems on German-style austerity. Some see hopeful signs amid the dismay. The outcry over Mr Berlusconi’s possible return, they think, demonstrates that Europeans are at last developing an elusive sentiment: a common political consciousness that might serve as the basis for further integration. Just look at the horrified headlines and statements across Europe. “Bunga-bunga comeback” declared Bild , a German tabloid. “The Mummy Returns” shouted the front page ...

  EU leaders have agreed on a roadmap for eurozone integration beyond the deal on centralised banking supervision, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said. Specific dates have not yet been agreed for the phases of integration. But the EU summit chairman, Herman Van Rompuy, said a deal should be reached next year on a joint resolution scheme for winding up failed banks. Mr Van Rompuy's far-reaching roadmap was the main topic of the two-day Brussels summit. Speaking after the summit talks, French President Francois Hollande said: "There is no doubt today about the integrity of the eurozone - Europe cannot now be taken by surprise." But beyond the banking reforms, he said, Europe must address the problems of unemployment and feeble growth. The deal to make the European Central Bank (ECB) the chief regulator should pave the way for direct recapitalisation of struggling eurozone banks by the main bailout fund, the...

WASHINGTON – The Schengen Treaty, which is one of the basic tenets of the European Union and allows people to move freely among member countries, is increasingly being threatened as the economic situation throughout Europe becomes progressively serious, according to a report from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin. What the treaty did was eliminate border controls among the E.U. members. It has become what has been described as one of the most visible symbols of that union. Nations throughout Central Europe to West European have done away with their internal border controls. Twenty-six countries belong to the Schengen Treaty, which includes all of the E.U. countries except the United Kingdom and Ireland. Other non-E.U. countries which are signatories to the Schengen Treaty are Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. For Europe, the Schengen Treaty has not only been a symbol of unity but also success of the E.U. – until now. With the influx of people from non-E.U. coun...

David Cameron 's strategy of exploiting the euro crisis to renegotiate the terms of Britain's EU membership and claw back powers from Brussels has run into stiff resistance from France on Friday. At the close of an European Council summit focused on the future shape of the single currency, François Hollande declared his opposition to an "a la carte" Europe where member states may choose which bits of EU law should apply. The French president insisted member states had to comply with the terms of EU treaties they had signed and ratified, saying: "Europe is not a Europe where you can take back competences. It is not Europe a la carte. Hollande, however, added that he was open to a debate on the issue if the Lisbon treaty needed to be reopened as part of the effort to make the euro more fit for purpose. His remarks highlight...

The 2006 World Cup in Germany seemed like a fairy tale come true for the country. Suddenly, years of troubling history seemed to lift amidst euphoria over the cosmopolitan twist fate had brought to the country. But this year, amid fresh debates over xenophobia, many are left wondering if the ugly German is back. How splendid we were in 2006. The world liked us, even loved us, because we were so good at exuberantly letting our hair down. The Germans danced to celebrate the football World Cup they were hosting, and almost everyone was pleased to join the party. Sixty years after World War II and the Holocaust, the nation of perpetrators seemed to have come out from under its depression, and the world seemed prepared to take these Germans into its heart. Now we seem ugly again. When the Greeks or the Spaniards protest against the supposed dictate of the Germans in euro policy, some of their posters depict ...