Wednesday
Sep112013
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Farage channels Rose
Sep 11, 2013 Climate: Parliament Climate: Surface David Rose's Arctic sea ice article has gone completely viral, clocking up something like 180,000 likes on Facebook. It's even made it onto the political headlines, with Nigel Farage waving the graphs for 2012 and 2013 sea ice at EU President Barroso (a former communist we gather - who knew?) at today's "State of the Union" address (at about 2:30).
Extraordinary times.
Reader Comments (68)
Sep 12, 2013 at 7:08 AM | maltesertoo
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The position in these Club Med countries is even more severe than suggested.
The real cause for concern is youth unemployment, eg.,in Spain nearly 50%. The population flight is of concern and this is even more significant in that it is largely accounted for by the younger generation. This means that the future work force in countries like Spain is either evaporating (via population flight), or will lack the knowledge and experience to get things moving again should their economies ever pick up. The long term futures of these countries is very depressing. The locked in high energy costs (due to the drive for so called green energy) is even worse than in Germany thus making industry even more uncompetitive, and of course, these countries also have locked in (up to 10 years) higher borrowing costs compared to Germany (say typically 5,5% compared to say 2.5% which means that the Club Med countries need to be more efficient than German to compete with Germany simply because of the locked in higher costs of borrowing they have had to endure these past 5 or so years. There never will be parity between north and south and the eurocrats are silly to consider that this is feasible; it is not and the longer the euro problems continue the worse it will become. the eurocrats have certainly sacrificed a generation (or more) of people living in the Club Med countries simply because of vanity and because they are not man enough to admit the fundamental failings with the euro, and to take the required steps to allieviate the problem.
Ironically, they may be helped should temperatures begin to cool in the northern hemisphere. Who would have thoughtb that climate change (sarc0 could have some benefit (sarc). As readers probably know, the winter CET figures suggest that since 2000, CET temperatures have fallen by about 1.5degC. Should this trend continue (and many think that with negative ocean cycles and/or a quiet sun that the trend will continue) then wealthy people from higher northern ltitudes (Scandinavia, Germany, Holland and even the UK) will think of emigrating, or at least living abroad in Club Med countries during the winter months to escape the frigid conditions. This will bring more money from the northern EEC to the Club Med countries, thereby helping a redistrivution of money from north to south..this probably will not kick start their economies (since there is already an over supply of housing and infrastucture is already in place and does not need to be built) but will provide some buffer from the very worst of times. Whatever was the appeal of Club Med countries (predominantly the better climate and laid back open air life style) will become more appealling to northern europeans if temperatures cool and we get a repeat of the winter conditions of the 1950s and 60s.
Further to the comments regarding the German car industry, the eurocrats who are looking for parity between north and south do not understand the advantage that Germany has.
German cars are bought on quality 9or at any rate perceived quality) not on price. They do not have to be built down to a rprice in order to compete. In fact, their high price is to some extent an advantage since it acts as a status symbol and promotes exclusivity. German cars carry a premium over and above the cost of manufacturing the car which means that German cars do not bneed to be built as efficiently as cars built in Club Med countries in order to compete with those cars 9of course german cars are not competing with FIAT and SEAT etc).
This is very different to the cars being built by Club Med (eg FIAT and SEAT etc). These cars cannot attract a premium and therefore need to be built more efficiently than an equivalent German car would need to be built (if there is a German equivalent) since the Club Med cars are sold on low price. It is the low price that attracts the buyer. The net effect of this is that even if there was parity in efficiency in costs between northern european countries and their goods with southern european countries and their respective goods, the northern europeans would win out since they have the hidden premium that quality provides. The upshot is that southern europe needs to be more efficiicient.have better rates of productivity than northern europe simply because it does not have the luxury of the additional premium that german goods (and the like) can and do command.
This extends wider than just the car market, consider Bosch, Siemens Miele etc, or French perfume. The latter is bought not because it is cheap but rather because it is not cheap. This is a fundamental point that is not appreciated by the eurocrats when they talk about parity between north and south.
It would take generations for the south to build up a reputation of quality that can be sold at a premium thereby allowing it to truly compete on a level playing field with the north. As observed to compete with the north, the south needs to be more competitive/more efficient/ more productive and that is never going to happen. How the severe austerity imposed upon Club Med countries is going to bring this about is a mystery given the devastation that it has wreaked, and this has never been thought through by the eurocrats who do not experience the devastation that they impose (remember that when Lagarde talks about the need for the Greeks to pay their taxes, she conveniently ignores that her salary is all but tax free http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2151681/IMF-chief-Christine-Lagarde-pays-NO-TAX-300-000-salary-despite-attacking-Greece-dodging-payment.html).
Socialism is like a ratchet- it move one way only.
It is a disgrace that "conservative"/centre right governments do not tear up the creeping plague of tax-funded Socialist policies as soon as they take office.
Maybe these administrations have also become corrupt on the taxpayer teat?
@richard verney
It would take generations for the south to build up a reputation of quality that can be sold at a premium thereby allowing it to truly compete on a level playing field with the north.
I started my working life in as a supplier to the motor trade and it was already very well understood, 25 years ago, that Fords, FIATs and SEATs are "marginal" cars. They are either second car to a BMW, or are bought by people who can't afford a BMW, but in either event are bought by people who can only just afford them. These buyers are either the first to get squeezed in recessions, or are squeezed enough that they make do with just the one car.
Consequently the sales of cheap cars boom during booms but bust badly during busts. This happens even if the cars remain cheaper while being better. An example of this is the Ford Mondeo versus the 3-Series BMW. The Ford is better equipped, gets better reviews and is even a more exclusive buy (BMW sells more 3s than Ford sells Mondeos, so of the two, the BMW is the "volume" car).
It is not at all clear that it is even possible for players like Ford and SEAT to ascend to the quality - hence sales stability - level of a BMW or Mercedes. There is only so much for demand for that type of product in the first place.
There was a clip on the BBC news at ten from the EU debate. They showed conservative members comments and some of Barroso's but did no show the clip above by Nigel Farage. This is blatant censorship ! See for your selves
News at 10 BBC ONE iplayer 26.30 onwards. is this excellent speach by Nigel not newsworthy ?
Ross Lea:
Censoring speeches reminds me of the USSR. No wonder the current bunch of EU-crats remind me of the Soviet Communists, light version of course, but still the red DNA is there.
Good post.
"The Socialists destroyed the Europe that I knew."
Let's be precise about it.
Connie Hedegaard is from the Danish Conservative People's Party, which is in turn part of the European People's Party group in the EU Parliament. The group is a coalition of centre-right domestic European parties, and by far the dominant group in the EU. Don't let the name deceive you.
It's not enough to say that Europe is a socialist project.
European politics took a turn away from the contest of 'ideology' as such. An argument could be made that one reason for building those institutions was to prevent socialism from developing, though the argument for Europe is typically made with respect to the need for political union as a balance to the consolidation of economic power in other regions (i.e. because of USA/China/Russia/etc. In other words, the construction of those political institutions might have been expedient to whichever nominative 'ideological' movements got behind it, be that . Something of a compromise is reached under that compact, which is culturally/socially left, economically right, and politically central. However, it's not democratic.
Categories of left/right do not adequately explain the phenomenon of European politics (notwithstanding occasional convergences of things like 'red and green').
@geoffchambers
" I don’t blame Tories for Churchill’s gassing of the Kurds in the twenties"
That is very big-hearted of you, considering that no evidence seems to exist that gas was used in Mesopotamia in the 1920s.
Geoff Chambers ,
In the speech by Bukovsky, one of the last USSR political dissidents he says several Socialist/Communist parties visited Gorbachev in the mid 80s and they agreed to infiltrate the EU. Regan and Thatcher had rolled back many of the left nostrums in the 80s. The EU was founded by Catholic Conservatives in order to prevent the rise of Fascism/Nazism which occurred pre-WW2 and the take over of W Europe by the Communists post WW2. Bukovsky explains why post mid 80s , so many pro- EU people have left wing backgrounds - Barroso , Ashton ,Delors, J Fischer .
Pre- mid 80s , many anti Europeans were on the left. If one looks at many organisations such as charities , EU and much of the public sector, non political people have been replaced by the left wing middle classes who became active post 1968. Suzi Leather, Ashton , Joschka Fischer and Barroso are typical left wing people who started their careers in groups such as CND, "green" politics and then have forged careers in NGOs( especially charities) and politics. Blair and Brown were very clever in making sure left wing people ran NGOs, NHS Trusts, school boards- basically the Left have followed the Gramsci-Frankfurt School- Alinsky rules in taking over cultural and very many other organisations. How many of the departments in Whitehall and councils are run by left wing people. - education, health, work and pensions, home office , DECC?
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/865
Comments by Bukovsky
In 1992 I had unprecedented access to Politburo and Central Committee secret documents which have been classified, and still are even now, for 30 years. These documents show very clearly that the whole idea of turning the European common market into a federal state was agreed between the left-wing parties of Europe and Moscow as a joint project which [Soviet leader Mikhail] Gorbachev in 1988-89 called our “common European home.”
The idea was very simple. It first came up in 1985-86, when the Italian Communists visited Gorbachev, followed by the German Social-Democrats. They all complained that the changes in the world, particularly after [British Prime Minister Margaret] Thatcher introduced privatisation and economic liberalisation, were threatening to wipe out the achievement (as they called it) of generations of Socialists and Social-Democrats – threatening to reverse it completely. Therefore the only way to withstand this onslaught of wild capitalism (as they called it) was to try to introduce the same socialist goals in all countries at once. Prior to that, the left-wing parties and the Soviet Union had opposed European integration very much because they perceived it as a means to block their socialist goals. From 1985 onwards they completely changed their view. The Soviets came to a conclusion and to an agreement with the left-wing parties that if they worked together they could hijack the whole European project and turn it upside down. Instead of an open market they would turn it into a federal state.
According to the [secret Soviet] documents, 1985-86 is the turning point. I have published most of these documents. You might even find them on the internet. But the conversations they had are really eye opening. For the first time you understand that there is a conspiracy – quite understandable for them, as they were trying to save their political hides. In the East the Soviets needed a change of relations with Europe because they were entering a protracted and very deep structural crisis; in the West the left-wing parties were afraid of being wiped out and losing their influence and prestige. So it was a conspiracy, quite openly made by them, agreed upon, and worked out.
I
Charlie, a very good treatise which concurs mostly with what I wrote, namely that the current EU is a socialist dream come true, no matter who is running it.
One point which I think I cannot agree is that "The EU was founded by Catholic Conservatives in order to prevent the rise of Fascism/Nazism which....." Those Catholics (Konrad Adenhauer, Charles de Gaul and Alcide de Gasperi together with the low countries' leaders) founded the Coal and Steel Union which became the European Economic COMMUNITY witht eh stress on Community.
It was the political left, which includes the center right that had actually moved towards the left of the political spectrum, that reformed the EEC into the EU super-state, the former was bloody rich, the latter is in economic tatters.
"It was the political left, which includes the center right that had actually moved towards the left of the political spectrum, "
Right is left?
People who use left and right to make their point often end up tying themselves in knots. That's one of the best examples I've ever seen.
With all due respect, the takeover of the establishment by the Left began long before the 1980s.
As for Geoff Chambers' point, sorry, I cannot agree with you. Barroso's past holds the key to his present and his future behaviour. The leopard hasn't changed his spots because he is not capable of such a transformation. The spots may have aged but spots they remain.
Nigel Farage can join David Rose on the list of those who cant tell the difference between "short term variation" and "long term trend".
Sep 12, 2013 at 12:20 AM entropic man
EM -
I know that in the gospel of "climate science" one of the tenets is:
(timescale < 30 years) = weather variation
(timescale > 30 years) = climate trend.
I can understand how such idealisations might appeal to someone who had spent a lifetime presenting simplified models as physical reality.
But, in reality, if you have no physically based model for the statistical variations of a system (which seems, in reality, as likely as not to be fractal-like in its time variations) then it is nonsense to claim to be able to discriminate between "short term variation" and "long term trend".
".... the takeover of the establishment by the Left began long before the 1980s"
Reminds me why I don't usually bother with comments.
I do not believe Bishop Hill is a good place to have a right left argument. I am unashamedly right wing but many of our best CAGW fighters are left wing, lets not piss them off please?
Streetcred
Why is a punctured run-flat tyre a waste?? Most punctures are in the tread area in which case you spend a few quid on a vulcanised puncture repair and forget about it. A puncture in the sidewall or the shoulder is fatal for any tyre. If a tyre dealer is telling you you need a new tyre to replace your run flat when the puncture is in the tread area he is a liar. I worked for Goodyear for over 30 years.
Ben Pile,
I think in the UK people have tended to think about the extreme left in economic terms only , ownership of the means of production, closed shops and union power. People have ignored cultural aspects of Marxism . After 1968 most arts and humanities departments were largely run by The New left and produced vast numbers of extreme left wing people. Burkes battalions of little people have been taken over by many left wing people. Look at the Rowntree Trust. The Guardian has gone from Free Trade Manchester Liberalism to New Left /cultural Marxism. Even organisations such as the National Trust, RSPB, RSPCA , Oxfam,Shelter, CAFOD appear to be no longer politically neutral but run by left wing middle classes.
Only recently someone associated with charities praised a subordinate who was leaving to stand as a Labour PPC. He said charities could no longer be run by ex-colonels . An ex RE or RA colonel who had read engineering would be far more effective than most charity CEOs.
EU is not a socialist project. Europeans treaties are designed according German ordoliberalism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordoliberalism