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Rather than admit the innumerable mistakes has has made, ECB president
Jean-Claude Trichet has continually upped the ante on taxpayers with increasingly risky measures such as loading up the ECB with junk bonds from Greece and Ireland in clear violation of the Maastricht Treaty.
Today, in the wake of still more failures of the bond
market to follow his wishes, Trichet openly calls for a bold new
initiative, one that would
effectively transform the
Euro-Zone, into a fiscal Nanny-Zone
as well.
Creation of the "Nanny
State"
Bloomberg reports Trichet Calls for Euro Finance
Ministry as Crisis Deepens
European Central Bank President
Jean- Claude Trichet said governments
should consider setting
up a finance ministry for
the 17-nation euro region as the bloc struggles to contain a region-wide sovereign debt crisis.
“Would it be too bold,
in the economic field, with a single market, a single currency and a single central bank,
to envisage a ministry of finance of the
union?” Trichet said in a speech today in Aachen, Germany. He also
favors giving the European Union powers to veto
the budget measures of countries that go “harmfully astray,” though that would require
a change to EU Treaties.
Trichet, who has no formal
power over government decision
making, hasn’t said what he
plans to do when he leaves the ECB at the end of October. He said today that while
any single finance ministry
would “not necessarily”
administer “a large federal
budget,” it would
“exert direct responsibilities
in at least three domains.”
These would include “first, the surveillance of both fiscal policies and competitiveness policies”
and “direct responsibilities” for
countries in fiscal distress, he
said.
It would also carry out
“all the typical responsibilities
of the executive branches as regards the union’s integrated financial sector, so as to accompany the full integration of financial
services, and third, the representation
of the union confederation in international financial institutions.”
Trichet said that any new form of fiscal governance would need to be “decided by the people of Europe” and that the EU president, the European Commission and the German
finance ministry are sure to have their own views.
Calls to the German finance ministry
for comments on Trichet’s
proposals were not immediately returned. Officials at the French finance
ministry declined to comment.
This was bound to happen given the flaws in the creation of the Euro itself.
Who is the best person to head up the nanny-state? Why it's none other than Jean-Claude Trichet, soon
to be out of his job as
ECB president because of term limit restrictions.
Flashback December 17, 2010: Support Rises
for "European Nanny
State"; Is Germany unfit for the Euro or is the Euro Unfit for the
PIIGS?
Angela Merkel's
Big Mistake
Merkel's big mistake was caving
in to Trichet, Noyer, and others who insisted on "no haircuts".
For that, she is now the subject
of "The Big Point" with
everyone jumping on her
back and pointing fingers.
Consider this statement from the EuroIntelligence article:
The Left Party’s
spokeswoman said Merkel’s position did not
reflect the national interest
but those of the banks (a
position with which we would agree.
Merkel is extraordinarily lazy in the definition of what constitutes the national interest.)
European Nanny
State
My initial reaction was "It would seem that Merkel
stood up FOR Germany and against
the banks when she insisted on haircuts."
Just to be safe, I emailed my friend
"HB" who lives
in Germany, asking for his
thoughts. His reply was "I completely agree with your interpretation."
He went on to comment about a reference
in the EuroIntelligence article citing
Der Spiegel’s online editorial
“Union of the Unreconciled” calling for the coordination of all aspects of economic policy, includes taxes, wages, and
pensions.
My friend "HB" commented
This is
what the fools that rule the Eurocracy want - a huge centralized nanny state in which taxes are
'harmonized' and citizens
can no longer choose between low and high tax nations.
It is the absolutely worst thing that
could possibly happen. It would be better for the euro-area to
break up.
Fiscal
Nanny-Zone
Trichet was one of the architects
of the Maastricht Treaty, and he
has violated that treaty at will
ever since.
Now he wants to completely trash the treaty, effectively transforming the Euro-Zone into
a nanny-zone "Eurocracy".
When will Germany finally step up to the plate
and tell Jean-Claude Trichet in no unmistakable terms where to shove it.
Mish
GlobalEconomicAnalysis.blogspot.com
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