The world turned upside down

It is actually in the UK’s interest to support M Macron and the southern EU states against Germany. Their efforts to force the Bundesbank to shit gold and ensure the future of the EU at least in the short term coincide with British interests. Oh sure, I dislike intensely all supranational bodies and the EU in particular and would love nothing more than to see its disintegration but as St Augustine prayed “….. not yet”. The dual impacts of the Wuhan virus and Brexit shock means we need at least for a year or two a stable and functioning EU on our borders. We simply can’t afford or accomplish the level of support we would be called upon to provide in the event of an imminent EU break-up.

We don’t care if Germany loses her place in the world GDP league as a result of shared fiscal responsibility. In fact it suits us – Macron’s plans would in effect castrate a powerful Germany on France’s borders long before our Teuton cousins get any new ideas about going walkabout. It will all be money down the drain, of course, and the problem is the Germans know that. And if push comes to shove, I’d guess they’ll put Germany before the EU. We don’t want a powerful independent Germany and a resurgent Deutsch mark. We really don’t.

So many things will be turned on their heads during this crisis, supporting the French will not be the most extraordinary of them. The car lease market is approaching collapse, car dealerships are in crisis, car manufacturers close to bankruptcy. VW is burning through its €27bn cash reserve at the rate of €2bn a week. Some 13,000 passenger aircraft are now grounded, and after this crisis there may not be room for both Boeing and Airbus in the market without a massive state subsidy fight between the US and EU. The cruise ship industry is finished – our pensioners could just about take the 50/50 risk of Norovirus and spending the cruise voiding through the eye of a needle, but two weeks in a floating Wuhan disease incubator will be too much. Despite the Prozac-bright optimism of some in the markets – “Three months crisis, three months recovery then three months growth” – chirped one chap on the radio this morning – things will never go back to where they were in December 2019.

And as I predicted last Thursday, the public backlash against the police has already begun. I wrote “the longer and deeper the restrictions on our freedoms, the stronger and wider the public backlash, and the bigger the Big Bang demolition of the Central State to come”. Well, we haven’t even started yet.

Keep well, all.