The European Central Bank has a good way of setting out its agenda whilst protecting its boss, Mr Draghi, from any flack. The talkative Central Banker, Benoit Coeure, is a senior member of the ECB Board. He regularly gives interesting lectures gazing into a more integrated European future. These lectures appear on the official ECB website and are given in his ECB capacity. So they are official bank statements, but Mr Draghi falls short of putting his own name to them which might make them more newsworthy.
In his latest, Mr Coeure explains the urgent need for a Euro Treasury, the very Euro Treasury which Mr Draghi did in outline support when he added his name to other 4 Presidents in their statement of common policy. He tells us “Our (EU) institutional framework is not yet sufficient to complete EMU when it comes to economic, fiscal and financial matters. The ECB does not currently have a strong political counterpart in these areas”. He recognises the huge economic and social damage being done by the current Euro scheme: “The crisis (Greece) showed that excessive imbalances and fragilities have been allowed to develop in a number of Euro area countries in the absence of sufficient safeguards… the consequences are not just economic, they are also political. Unemployment hits the young hardest, creating a lost generation.”
His remedy is a Euro Treasury. This would both be able to enforce budget discipline on each member state, but also able to route money from rich to poor. “We cannot advocate a Europe of solidarity (transfer payments ed) while believing that the economic policies of each Euro area country are the business of that country’s Parliament alone”. Exactly. He and his Euro friends wish to sell the Euro Treasury to the Germans as the way to stop excess spending and excess credit in places like Greece, Spain and Portugal, and wants to sell the Euro to the struggling countries as the means for them to gain access to solidarity payments from the richer areas.
He sees this raises issues of accountability. He helpfully suggests ” The joint implementation of a political project and an economic strategy also assumes that our political union will be strengthened… I have spoken out in favour of the creation of a finance ministry for the whole Euro area under the oversight of the European Parliament”
This has serious repercussions for the UK. We are rapidly moving to a world where the Euro drives major political changes with decisions shifting to the centre. Mr Coeure wishes to use the single market as part of the mechanism for his reforms where the UK is directly involved. The banking union too increasingly envelops UK banks in its fold. Are we going to have two categories of MEP, those from Euro participating countries and those from outside? Or do we get to debate and vote the spending of their currency union money?
September 4, 2015
Indeed, surely it is now very clear that the sooner we get out of the whole EU project the better.
Do the EUphiles have a single sensible reason to stay in?
September 4, 2015
The more one reads (and looks at the numbers) on Osborne’s the proposal to prevent landlords deducting their interest from taxable profits the worse it get. What on earth is driving this total economic lunacy does he want to drive rents up further and see fewer houses built?
Did Osborne just hear Natalie Bennett going on about it and think:- Yeah, we need some of this green loon, economic illiteracy and thieving off landlords? Perhaps to add on to his appalling & continued private pension muggings in the Gordon Brown mode.
Still it will not affect me very much. Perhaps what is more worrying is what damaging fiscal insanities will he come out with next?
September 4, 2015
Lifelogic
“Do Europiles have a single sensible reason to stay in ”
Not one they would like to share, lots of scare stories about if we should leave, but not a single truthful one about the benefits of remaining in.
Big Brother just wants to get bigger !
Problem is, the Eurosceptics (other than on this site) have not made a good enough case either as yet.
September 4, 2015
Their only argument for staying in the EU seems to be that the EU will beat us up should we leave. But they can & do do that & far more efficiently with the UK in the EU.
In the EU they can use all their (law stretching) EU courts and the vast body largely daft, loosely worded & highly damaging EU treaties.
September 4, 2015
Almost anything can be deemed to come under say “health and safely” or harmonisation.
September 4, 2015
A German study has come up with a cost to the UK economy of leaving the EU of £240bn. I haven’t seen the substance. I think Outers need to start to come up with a rigorous and dispassionate cost benefit analysis of EU membership. The best I’ve seen to date is Roger Bootle’s ‘The Trouble with Europe’. I hope he brings out an updated edition well in time for the referendum debate.
Reply We have done and there is a gain, with the major plus being the large saving on contributions to the EU.
September 4, 2015
German think-tank Bertelsmann Stiftung claims the British exit, “Brexit”; would hurt all 28 member-states, but would hit the UK hardest, with damage to the economy outweighing savings from contributions to Brussels budgets. Britain’s exit from the European Union could hit the economy to the tune of £225 billion by 2030.
Quitting the EU following a referendum would have “long-term negative consequences” for the UK’s economy, which would be between 0.6% and 3% smaller after 12 years outside, than it could expect to be, if it remained a member. The equivalent of up to 313 billion euros (£224 billion) at current prices.
In a best-case scenario, in which Britain has a trade agreement with the EU similar to that of Switzerland, Brexit would cost every UK citizen the equivalent of 220 euros (£157) a year at current prices by 2030. The least favourable outcome, in which the UK loses all trade privileges and agreements, would see losses equivalent to 4,850 euros (£3,470) per head by that date.
Unless the EU is totally pissed off with our Anglo-Saxon ways, there is no reason to believe that we would lose all trade privileges and agreements with the EU.
September 4, 2015
Amazing how the EU dependent quangos would miss the UK’s taxpayer’s contribution to their handouts.
September 4, 2015
That must be the study I was thinking of. If it’s £225m accumulated by 2030 that isn’t that much – roughly balanced by the savings on EU contributions as pointed out above by JR. Also an estimate of a loss of between 0.6 & 3% is so vague as to be worthless. It seems to come down to the extent to which UK business would be disadvantaged either overtly or covertly in EU markets were the UK to leave. On the other side is the independent trade deals which could be done, the saving in EU subs and the intangible value of more self government.
September 4, 2015
Cave-in Cameron didn’t take long to snap on the migrant issue. How long would he take to cave in over demands for fairness for England I wonder?
September 4, 2015
He already has given in on fairness for England has he not? Also it seems he has no intention of any substantive EU renegotiation at all.
On the positive side he is taking refugees in a better way, by taking them from the UN refugee camps rather than encouraging yet more to risk their lives. But Cameron & Osborne are, at heart, totally media & photo op driven, logic, science and numeracy rarely get a look in.
September 4, 2015
Just to be clear about this, while the EU is developing a common policy on asylum and immigration – one could say on “asylum/immigration”, because in reality the first is being used as a pretext for the second, the intention being to allow and encourage mass immigration irrespective of the views of the body of established citizens – the UK still has an opt-out from the relevant EU treaty provisions and therefore Cameron will have no excuse at all if he caves in to demands from the EU Commission:
https://euobserver.com/migration/130105
or from other EU leaders, most notably the “let all come because German women have not had enough babies” Merkel, or indeed from the NUJ members who run the mass media in this country.
The UK opt-out is in Protocol (No 21) attached to, but deemed an integral part of, the EU treaties, here:
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex:12012E/TXT
“In consequence of Article 1 and subject to Articles 3, 4 and 6, none of the provisions of Title V of Part Three of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, no measure adopted pursuant to that Title, no provision of any international agreement concluded by the Union pursuant to that Title, and no decision of the Court of Justice interpreting any such provision or measure shall be binding upon or applicable in the United Kingdom or Ireland; and no such provision, measure or decision shall in any way affect the competences, rights and obligations of those States; and no such provision, measure or decision shall in any way affect the Community or Union acquis nor form part of Union law as they apply to the United Kingdom or Ireland.”
That is, of course, assuming that the UK government has not sneaked through a measure to relinquish that part of the opt-out, which is always possible with a government which does not have the interests of the UK citizens at heart.
Perhaps JR could say whether this part of the treaty opt-out still applies.
September 4, 2015
This is nothing but a huge psyop.
‘Those who the gods wish to destroy they first make mad’
We have the child buried in his hometown (Kobane) with his father where the family fled in fear of their life apparently but in no apparent danger….
This is nothing but opportunistic economic migration which is being encouraged on an epic scale. Where will this end?
Utter madness…. ‘Moral duty’….. This is feeding a frenzy and the BBC is loving it. First of all, we had the report of the man ‘falling’ on the railway track when in fact he deliberately threw himself on the track. The supposedly impartial, factual BBC reporting is a disgrace.
zorro
September 5, 2015
Mobs of illegal immigrants, invaders just as much as the successive barbarians who forced their way into the Roman Empire or the Vikings with their raiding parties, albeit so far less violent.
Chanting “Germany, Germany, Germany”, one actually carrying an EU flag, many others with pictures of Merkel, who they refer to as “Mother” … if anyone wants to look beyond the father as the person directly responsible for the deaths of his family members then they should look to Merkel, who has actively encouraged people who were already safe if not particularly comfortable in Turkey and elsewhere to put their lives at risk by attempting illegal entry into the EU by publicly holding out the prospect of being welcomed in Germany notwithstanding any established rules on asylum; and that goes for many others, tens of thousands, beyond that particular family.
Well, Merkel is their mother, apparently, so she and the Germans she leads should look after these illegal immigrants when they arrive in Germany, and not try to get people in other countries involved in a problem which she has chosen to exacerbate.
September 4, 2015
Wall to wall leftism on this issue, Denis.
One finds the image of a child dead on a beach harrowing. etc ed
But a whole national policy dicated by such ?
Will we be shown the images of British children who die because they can’t get cancer treatment on the NHS because it is too overstretched ?
And the likes of Cameron and Emma Thompson. They are asking other people to foot the bill for their largesse. They won’t be the ones put to the back of the housing queue, going to the back on the list for NHS treatment nor their kids missing school places or jobs.
Only when they give away their wealth and suffer as ordinary British people are going to can we respect their exhortations that we should be more generous.
This is before we mention crime, religious tension and terrorism that will be brought to these shores.
September 4, 2015
David and Sam Cameron putting up refugees in their houses (and they aren’t allowed to choose who.)
How about it ?
September 4, 2015
There’s a lot of countryside near Witney. Possible site for a refugee camp?
September 4, 2015
The point I tried to make which was edited is that there were plenty of examples of English children killed by terrorism that could have been used to shame the Left but weren’t.
They are controlling the narrative and the agenda in a way that no one else would.
September 4, 2015
One could draw a comparison to England and Scotland:
“English votes for English issues” then becomes “Eurozone votes for Eurozone issues”, and not for all non-euro MEPs to co-decide on. Fortunately the UK government has an officially declared interest in the success of the Eurozone and the euro.
Any UK attempts in the West that would seek to divide or break up the EU are relatively feeble compared to compared to forces in the East (Russia, Putin) who would happily collude with efforts to divide, weaken or even break up the EU. Often the result is stronger coalescence within the EU after first a lot of intergovernmental summits and the appearance of chaos or inertia in reaching a form of unity.
The 5 presidents’ report advises that in the case of a future euro treasury (not before 2025), first the national (euro) parliaments will have to be given a much stronger role to build the necessary democratic accountability.
Whether this report will find any sympathy or agreement among the 28 governments in their European summits is anyone’s guess. Mine is that, without external crises, this will be a longer and slower process than reaching it in 2025. But still a relevant issue to consider for the British in their referendum.
September 4, 2015
Peter v L
Imperialism is so 19th century.
The 21st Century is Small is beautiful, Euroland will implode from the inside NOT external forces. There are already 19 separatist movements within the EU. When the full ramifications of the total dogs breakfast the EU has made of this latest farrago hits home the people are going to get very angry. Why isn’t anyone reporting the unrest in Germany?
September 4, 2015
@libertarian: Dutch media are reporting the unrest in Germany, demonstrations as well as attacks on migrants or migrant homes.
Ever considered a career as a prophet (of doom) libertarian?
September 5, 2015
@libertarian: There was me thinking that British imperialism only “officially” ended with the hand-over of Hongkong, late into the 20th century. As for the 21st century, organisations besides the EU which by now have discussed greater integration include:
Arab League into an “Arab Union”
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) into the “North American Union”
Pacific Islands Forum into the “Pacific Union”
Customs Union of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia into the “Eurasian Union”
I do agree with you that small is beautiful, as seen in innovative start-up companies, but does that mean that big is by definition ugly (Google, Apple, Facebook, etc.)?
September 5, 2015
RT reports it.
September 4, 2015
Dear Peter van L: As you doubtless know, public discussion of such sensitive issues is carefully stifled in the UK, except in a few oases such as Mr Redwood’s blog. If there is genuine public political discussion bout a eurozone Treasury and its implications for taxes, spending, borrowing, transfers and control anywhere, I like to think it might be in the Netherlands. Is this so? And if it is, is any common view emerging, apart from “it won’t happen for 10 years”?
September 5, 2015
@outsider: You may not be very satisfied with the discussion in the Netherlands either. When asked about it, the prime-minister (Mark Rutte) dismissed the 5-president’s report out of hand, he doesn’t do long-term perspectives. This was interesting because his own minister of finance (Jeroen Dijsselbloem) is one of these 5 presidents. This 5-presidents’ report hasn’t been on any summit agenda yet, as far as I know, and when it may in future, I expect it first to be kicked into the long grass. That doesn’t mean that it could never happen. After all, ideas like the EU or the euro (EMU) existed long before the real work on their realisation started. Having had the experience that “things were going to fast” (the 2005 Dutch referendum after suddenly the EU had grown from 15 to 25 member states in 2004) and with a much larger UKIP-like party than in Britain the Dutch government will want to move as slowly as possible and very gradually prepare Dutch voters. While already, more and more issues require European solutions, Dutch will likely support moving towards more integration, provided the whole process will go slowly and gradually.
September 4, 2015
Mr Redwood, as usual you are well on the ball. Congratulations. I am going to go on to say that I wish the papers and the TV and the rest of the political world were as good. They are way off beam – talking about the immigrants or even a Europe of different countries.
The Bertelsmann-Spinelli constitution is being brought slowly into force where there are “pre Euro and Associate Members” of the EU and the Eurozone countries. Eventually it is hoped there will be one big central state. This is just one step forward to that end.
September 4, 2015
Just another reason to leave.
September 4, 2015
The inference in what you say is that to belong to the single market you must also necessarily belong to their banking arrangements. This suggests that leaving the EU may be a rebirth but the umbilical remains intact. I know of nowhere else in the World where trading with a country puts strictures on our banking system other than that of international law.
The ECB can only enfold UK banks if UK government allows it. Cameron would allow it , I hope you would not.
For ever closer union to work, the European Parliament must take precedence over all other EU bodies No more Commissioners or cabals of unelected nationally failed politicians. However if we leave, what they do is their business.
My wish is that we get out of the EU and therefore have no MEPs. We then treat the EU as a none tariff trading partner leaving them to get on with their ever closer political union and banking arrangements. We do not have a need to participate in the politics of India, China, or the USA to trade with them. The World money markets can be left to appraise the EU’s banking and currency value. This should be our future attitude to the EU. We should retain what arrangements have evolved for mutual benefit and end those that are not, treating Europe as friendly neighbours.
September 4, 2015
Everything that happens in Europe is designed to marginalise the UK. The EZ will offer us associate membership which will be on the present terms which Dave will try and sell as the result of his negotiations.
We are going to finish up paying 25% of the budget with zero influence.
I see Dave has capitulated to the BBC and is going to let thousands of Syrians and no doubt a fair smattering of ISIL supporters in.
Isn’t 640,000 annually enough.
September 4, 2015
No it’s not. The 800,000 “heading for Germany” – are speaking and writing their placards in English. Ang is going to give them papers – -and a one-way ticket to here. Problem for Germany – solved.
September 4, 2015
Bigneil. Maybe it was the BBC that supplied the placards? They love to set the narrative, if possible.
September 4, 2015
Seriously, just how is the UK supposed to cope with the numbers? Just what are we all working for? How does Sturgeon propose to take her share of immigrants whens she can’t manage education, NHS, policing now? She is always moaning about not having enough resources and yet is eager to take immigrants. Where are the jobs for these people?
September 4, 2015
Why is he worried about the BBC if he is not seeking re-election?
zorro
September 4, 2015
I see radio 4 was on about women in science yet again. With Professor Athene Donald basically saying more Meccano and fewer dolls for girls. I am from a science background & I am all in favour or more women going into science (but only on merit that is).
It is very silly and unscientific to ignore that fact that many women often are just not remotely interested in doing science.
My son has just passed his double maths, chemistry, physics GCSEs etc. with A*s but my younger (eight year old) daughter can hardly pass a shop without demanding yet another doll, dolls clothes, a cuddly toy dog or something similar and has always been like that. A Meccano set would not have been well received as a birthday present. I am reminded of a girl I know who, when given some nuts bolts and plastic spanners, wrapped the spanners in tissue paper and put the whole spanner family to bed.
Surely science is about observing the world as it is not as the “BBC thinkers” would like it to be? Performing arts at A level is 90% women, Modern languages about 70% women, computer studies 90% men, physics about 80% men, Further maths about 70% men. You can hardly expect the same gender outcomes given the choices the genders freely make. Why when the BBC discuss the subject is this never mentioned. It is all about gender conditioning and glass ceilings.
Does Dame Athene Donald want to force them into science or perhaps even genetically modify them?
http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2014/aug/14/a-level-results-2014-the-full-breakdown
She also has some statistic about single sex girls schools producing more scientists than mixed gender ones. I suspect she is confusing cause and effect here. It is probably more that single sex girls schools draw from a rather different social mix and get better results all round.
September 5, 2015
Interesting … In all your thinking, there is no mention of how parents might actually condition their daughters to play with dolls and put Meccano pieces to bed. Have you ever heard of nature and nurture? Children, for a huge part, reflect what parents show them: a macho father, a macho son, a LillyWhite my LittlePoney daughter, a behaviour further reinforced for good or bad by school.
September 5, 2015
I certainly do not think I have done anything to condition my daughter or son – that way they are.
Spiders and Cuckoos never even meet their real parents and yet go through their whole life cycles all pre-programmed into them. In short is surely nearly all nature.
It is only reasonable to assume, given what we know about genes and evolution, there will be gender differences on average. Indeed if you measure almost anything by gender you find statistically significant results.
The cars the genders buy, the jobs they do, the subject they study, their life expectancy, the illnesses they contract, the sports they choose, the length of time they take to set off after getting into a car ……
September 4, 2015
When are these people going to get the message the whole process is floored and the way it has bought about the Greece crisis it is time to call it a day on the euro?
Off Topic.
Having just heard the news about the decision to be expected from CMD who is trying to broker up a deal over change in Spain and Portugal today what is the betting that he will be told what to do and say if he even wants to get a hearing.
If we do have to take 25000 then just make sure they speak English however basic. That way they might be of use to the country by getting a job and paying taxes like the majority of us. If they don’t all that will happen within a few years is enclaves of minority nationalities setting up their rules to their way of life. The tinder box is slowly but surely being overloaded
September 4, 2015
The msm are at it again, by shaping the news not reporting it. Who wouldn’t be upset at the human tragedy that is unfolding before our eyes on the TV screens? Why are all these migrants heading north and not south to their rich Muslim brothers in Saudi Arabia or elsewhere? Especially as over 90% seem to be men only. Are we to believe that the women folk and children are just left behind? Why is it our responsibility any more than USA, Japan, Australia or elsewhere? If Cameron can talk about safely taking our quota by safe means he means air travel. So why are the refugees not going elsewhere in the world? Ms Merkel has a lot to answer for and your weak leader needs to grow a backbone!
September 5, 2015
Merkel, who like 30% plus of German women is herself childless, said to be one of the highest proportions anywhere in the world, and seen as a major economic problem for the future which can only be remedied by mass immigration from more fertile populations:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/jan/27/germany.lukeharding
has set herself up as their “Mother”; and, yes, she does have a lot to answer for, especially the deaths of some of those she encouraged to attempt illegal entry into the EU, but also providing criminals with increased revenues from people smuggling.
September 4, 2015
Turbo – More competition for scarce housing and jobs ?
Only when the lofty elite start suffering to exactly the same degree as the rest of us.
They cannot be allowed to give away other people’s money, other people’s futures and other people’s security without suffering great discomfort themselves.
September 4, 2015
Anonymous – the day that happens hell will freeze over.
September 4, 2015
It needs to be said again and again that if we, foolishly, vote to remain in the EU, adoption of € will follow as night follows day.
September 4, 2015
Yes, Merkel made that clear in May 2010 when she said:
“Our goal must be that all EU member States join the euro one day.”
If we stay in the EU then it will be a perpetual struggle to keep out of the euro, the pressure to join it will increase as more and more countries are pushed/pulled into it, and eventually the eurofederalists will get lucky with a UK government which takes us into it, with or without a referendum as may be the case.
September 4, 2015
The Draghi/Coeure proposals must be viewed as wholly unrealistic as they do not seem to allow for member states undertaking as much People’s QE as each might wish.
September 4, 2015
The eurozone states are already barred from undertaking People’s QE, if they were not then doubtless distressed countries such as Greece would have done it.
September 4, 2015
Mr Coeure EUrospeak said:
I’ll translate it:
Meaning, the death of the nation state, in other words.
I would also posit, that throwing the Club Med under a bus, causing untold economic pain, woeful unemployment and financial hardship on the people’s of the periphery of the €zone – that was part of the plan?
As per usual they [Brussels/ECB] put the cart before the horse. Indeed, wouldn’t it have been better if a European Central Bank – treasury was created before the € was launched? Hmm, ah…….. but then, they would have had to sell it to the individual state Diets of each member of the EU, indeed, the Brussels-ECB axis needed to formulate a crisis first…..and in its implementation, they have thoroughly succeeded.
Good luck Mr. Coeure, you and the rest of the gnomes in (some investment bank ed) offshoot ah em – the ECB will need some sort of ‘heart’ selling this rather tardy great plan you’ve hatched – to the French, Dutch, Finns, Austrians, Germans. I would bet that, even Angela Merkel and therein the Deutsche Bundesbank………will shudder at the thought of selling that policy idea.
The EU, the worst laid plans and cobbled by megalomaniacs -what could possibly go wrong?
September 4, 2015
I have a slogan for all sane minded Eurosceptics of what ever campaign following.
” I’m voting to LEAVE “
September 4, 2015
Coeure is nothing more than a Robin Hood without the nearby Sherwood Forest . Taking from the rich and giving to the poor is an economic fallacy . There are too many ethnic and geographical features in Europe to ever bring them together under a political/economic umbrella.
Trouble is there are many political figures who use their positions for their own short term gains ( the recent evidence of the Blair plea to Clinton for a push for the top European spot is an example ) ; the public should be warned of these consequences . The creation of a European Treasury would be the death bell for democracy and for the European Banks .
September 4, 2015
Euro Treasury, “Britain is doing well. We’ll have some of that. We can bail out that country that doesn’t collect the taxes due, and give all our employees, above a certain rank of course, a large bonus.” “Now how can we destabilise the Ukraine some more?”
September 4, 2015
This proposal is logical for the Eurocracy and the EZ. The UK should have no part in it. It is difficult to see what arrangement Messrs Cameron and Osborne can negotiate to make the Remain option a compelling choice come the referendum.
September 4, 2015
John, as an extension of my previous post, is the EU following the Coudenhove-Kalergi Plan with the welcoming of thousands if not millions of immigrants.
After all Angela is totally signed up to the plan and was recognised with the Charlemagne prize some time back.
September 4, 2015
Let more migrants in and multiples more will try to get in and a lot more people will die. That is obvious.
The BBC is relentlessly pushing its campaign and will do so until it gets a result. The result will be more people dying. That, it seems is what we are forced to pay the licence fee for.
The whole thing is disgusting. Either the government should get some backbone and save lives or the transmitters should be turned off
September 4, 2015
Sorry this is off topic
September 4, 2015
“The BBC is relentlessly pushing its campaign and will do so until it gets a result. The result will be more people dying. That, it seems is what we are forced to pay the licence fee for.”
Not me; I refuse to subsidise the propagandistic activities of English-hating filth; my television set has been recycled and I most certainly do not miss it
September 4, 2015
Like it or not JR, The Eurosystem needs its own Treasury AND tax raising powers. The latter because taxation gives the Euro value. You have to get some Euro to pay your taxes.
Having a common currency with 19 Treasuries and 20 Central Banks has always been a bit daft. Added to that, the 19 Treasuries have to sell Bonds, to get some Euro, in a private market that adds no economic value (except to the Spivs wallets), with Euro that were issued previously by the ECB. A system that is even dafter than the United States “debt ceiling”.
Anyway, for Denis. So please don’t chop this out JR. Have a look at where all the Gilts are ( I have cut this out as I wish you to make your case, not refer me to sites I don’t know ed)
These Gilts have nothing to do with raising “money” for the government to spend. It does not have to issue them, they are just elaborate savings accounts. NS&I could replace the whole lot with its current (personal pension ?) “income bonds” and put the Bond Spivs out of work overnight.
If you are bothered about our overseas aid budget doing no good, have a think about why we are giving £13 billion of free money, as interest, to all the foreigners, that are holding £419 billion in saving accounts at the BoE?
The Treasury is paying itself a similar amount on the Gilt holdings of its own Bank of England, as a result of QE. That is money that is no longer going into the private sector as spending money. Good init 😉
September 5, 2015
I don’t know why you have to get yourself into such a tangle over this, acorn, when it is perfectly simple.
A gilt is an IOU issued by the Treasury and sold to investors, an IOU which says that whoever owns it when an interest payment is due will get that money, and whoever owns it when it matures will get the capital payment.
That was true of all the gilts bought from normal gilts investors by the Bank when they were owned by those normal investors, and it continued to be true when the ownership of the gilts was transferred to the Bank, and nor will it change if the Bank sells them back to normal investors.
So when the Bank says it owns gilts valued at about £375 billion, as it does:
http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/markets/Pages/apf/results.aspx
that means that the Treasury now owes that amount of money, or thereabouts, to the Bank as the owner of those gilts.
(Or, to be more precise, the Treasury owes that amount of money to the wholly owned subsidiary of the Bank which actually owns the gilts, and the subsidiary owes a similar sum to the Bank itself, the loan given for the purchases.)
I can’t be bothered to look up the past and present breakdowns of gilts holdings between different classes of investors, if you really want that information you can look for it yourself on the slow and cumbersome website of the Debt Management Office, but suffice it to say that the Bank has gone from holding virtually no gilts to being the largest single gilts investor by far, with the normal gilts investors lead by pension funds and insurance companies now way behind.
September 4, 2015
The ECB official website could at the time after Latvia severed its ties with the USSR and unilaterally and immediately broke contractual trade relationships, when it sought accession to the EU, have got the world’s press to show the actual starvation, the hunger, in some Latvian villages of which the pro-EU Latvian government was entirely responsible.
It then could have got the world’s press instead of showing Free Latvia as a new and most desirable tourist destination..well, its capital of Riga actually, to go into a village and take a photograph of a very thin dead toddler. It could then tell everyone that “there was a surge of support ” irrespective of the fact that people have calloused eyes with the sight of death due to previous sensationalist irresponsible journalism, and, that “people DEMAND closer EU integration “oh and “the British government is being FORCED to bow to public opinion”
The EU and ECB could use, even though Europeans and British and (ex ) armed service personnel and its citizens…can remember, without the use of contrived and simultaneously released photographs say of a living toddler in the streets of Sheffield burning and screaming to death as he stood, thanks to German bombers.But then that could have the opposite effect.
In fact, it does not matter whether, the EU “project” is backed by America with absolutely characteristic US styles of photo-journalism. The EU “project” got bombed to hell years ago.
September 4, 2015
Margaret Thatcher in the Commons on October 30th 1990, at Column 873 here:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm198990/cmhansrd/1990-10-30/Debate-1.html
“The President of the Commission, Mr. Delors, said at a press conference the other day that he wanted the European Parliament to be the democratic body of the Community, he wanted the Commission to be the Executive and he wanted the Council of Ministers to be the Senate. No. No. No.”
Angela Merkel on November 7th 2012:
http://euobserver.com/institutional/118126
“The EU commission will eventually become a government, the council of member states an “upper chamber” and the European Parliament more powerful … ”
Viviane Reding, vice president of the European Commission as reported on January 8th 2014:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/10559458/We-want-a-United-States-of-Europe-says-top-EU-official.html
“We need to build a United States of Europe with the Commission as government and two chambers – the European Parliament and a “Senate” of Member States,” she said.
Twenty-four years, roughly a generation, and exactly the same proposal is being advanced as in 1990; since Thatcher rejected it outright item by item with her “No. No. No.” her successors as Prime Minister – Major, Blair, Brown and Cameron – have all played their parts in allowing and assisting matters to move in that same direction; does Cameron really believe that he can now reverse that process through renegotiation, indeed does he expect us to believe that he really wants to?
Oh, and yes, that federal “United States of Europe” which Viviane Reding openly called for only last year would be much the same federal “United States of Europe” that a certain eurofanatic Dutch deceiver who posts his comments here recently asserted nobody of any account ever wanted in the past or now wants for the future.
September 4, 2015
@Denis: Maybe you just cannot help yourself, but continued name-calling (“eurofanatic Dutch deceiver”) doesn’t really make you appear very strong in any exchange of views!
What I remember best from Merkel’s debate with MEPs in november 2012 is what she said to Mr Verhoffstad, to the effect that integration will only progress in the measure and the tempo that national populations will accept. That is rather a caveat! In that debate with the EP she also said that she cannot imagine the EU without the UK and that she’ll do everything to keep the UK in the EU as a good partner.
Vivian’s opinions are about as irrelevant as Farage’s opinions, these are the extremes at both sides of the debate. I keep saying that the hybrid nature of the EU gives it the flexibility to move to more or indeed less supranational decision-making. Current moves are towards more intergovernmental decision making, less regulation and more subsidiarity. And still, the UK is free to leave and suffer the consequences (or, as you see it, reap the benefits) of leaving the EU.
September 4, 2015
” I keep saying that the hybrid nature of the EU gives it the flexibility to move to more or indeed less supranational decision-making. Current moves are towards more intergovernmental decision making, less regulation and more subsidiarity.”
Oh, please Peter, don’t insult our intelligence with this rubbish !
The EU only has one answer to everything and that’s “More Europe”
Subsidiarity is a myth, totally non existent and there is no flexibility :
When the people vote against something they are simply asked to vote again until they come up with the “right answer”
When we think we have an opt out they rope us in by other means or try and use their latest wheeze, telling us it’s only a “political agreement” so it can be broken with impunity.
Put simply, anyone who has followed events of the last twenty years can’t have any faith whatsoever in anything these people say.
They have one agenda and whatever the cost to people and countries, nothing, absolutely nothing, is going to be allowed to get in the way.
Just ask Alexis Tsipras and the people of Greece.
We simply have to win the referendum and get us out.
September 5, 2015
@Chris S: intelligence???
You don’t seem to have understood that the Greece issue was a stand off between one democracy (Greece) and 18 other democracies (the creditors) grouped in a as yet still informal “eurogroup”. Why should these 18 countries not have kept Greece to its earlier commitments and this time round make them enforcible in a better way?
The British are about the least well informed people when it concerns Europe or the European institutions, having been on an anti-EU drip feed by tabloids for decades. It’s not my concern if you don’t see subsidiarity, you’re welcome to leave the EU of British people were to vote for that. Still, I don’t think that most British will chse that option.
September 4, 2015
Leave it alone Peter van EU. We all know the aim and Denis is 100% right. As always you are 100% wrong. Farage always tells the truth. The rest don’t!!
September 4, 2015
It’s hard to keep up with conservative party policy. One minute its shut the libraries to save money, the next they are a key part of the child literacy approach. One minute its drop immigration the next its let more in. So soon after an election to be making it up as you go along seems very far away from democracy.
September 4, 2015
It makes ‘kafkaesque’ seem solidly dull…..
zorro
September 4, 2015
Iain, all these immigrants will make the figures look good when Dave has to explain why he hasn’t got on top of immigration. He thinks we are idiots.
September 4, 2015
Somewhat off topic I think much more blame for the current rather sour tone of the debate on migrants/refugees in the UK should be put at the door of Labour. It was Labours deliberate mass immigration policy – intended to socially engineer a left-voting population – which has created the current attitudes to immigration in the UK. It would be good if sanctimonious Labour politicians such as Yvette Cooper were reminded of this. Yet another pernicious legacy of the Labour years.
September 5, 2015
The archbishop of Canterbury is no better. In his interview he should have been asked if he was going to let them into his precious state church schools, where discrimination against none Christians is the norm on the admissions system.
September 4, 2015
Hours after Mr Corbyn’s TV rout of his Labour leadership contenders, this morning on American CNN, I watched quizzically as Mr DAVID Miliband (again ) was interviewed about the Syrian refugee crisis, his thoughts, meditations, and considered opinions like a very modern model of Marcus Aurelius…well his hair style IS berlosconi-esque with a small “b” at least. Immediately afterwards the lady journalist stated there was “a surge” of British public opinion “demanding acceptance of Syrian refugees.” Actually there is not. And how would she know if there was?
JR you write of a “European project”. or “EU project.” That an unfolding United States of Europe is… as written on the tin, that is: “European”. That moves to a combined fiscal and monetary union spring from a European cognitive dissonance and we British are being dragged screaming and shouting into central European lunacy.
So many things point to the EU being an extension of US military policy; to an extension of American foreign policy; and, to an extension of American Fed policy on economics and social imperatives.
We should oppose continued integration into the EU-USA Bloc. Clearly the USA has chosen the next leader of the LABOR Party after Mr. Corbyn. We should all wait patiently and watch American TV networks to see who will take the place of Mr Cameron of the Brits’ Conservative Party. Who is their man in the Tory party?
September 4, 2015
We have to face the fact that, from the point of view of the Eurozone, all this is logical enough. These are countries, for the most part, which were rolled over by dictators in the 1930s and whose democratic institutions failed to stand up against rabid populism or military incursion. They think the only way to survive in the modern world is to club together, keep out extremism, immerse themselves in the soft warm bath of self-righteous political correctness and hope that the terrorists who hate them will somehow embrace bourgeois values.
The bullying institutions of a superstate are being put in place bit by bit.
September 4, 2015
“His remedy is a Euro Treasury. This would both be able to enforce budget discipline on each member state, but also able to route money from rich to poor.”
said with a straight face.
the mechanism for looting will be complete with a treasury. Except the rich will not be the looted.
these govts, all of them, disgust me.
September 4, 2015
It is indeed total madness. I know a way to solve alll the problems. We grow a magic money tree which creates (limitless) money for everyone with no need to work and everyone has what they want. I demand to know why noone has thought of this before! 9_9
zorro
September 4, 2015
It will be interesting to see what Cameron presents as the benefits of staying in after he has failed go gain anything from his renegotiation, I am genuinely interested to know why he is such a Euro-enthusiast. I fear though he will just use the usual scare tactics about us losing our trade and influence without coming up with any positive points.
September 4, 2015
More to the point, the French President and Economics Minister make the same proposal. Methinks that France is preparing to switch from the fiscally sound Member States to the Club Med way of thinking.
September 4, 2015
Off topic but if we had control over our EU boarders would we not be now be taking a lead in rescuing the real refugees from Syria?
I understand the reluctance from the Government when we are forced to take so many economic migrants from the EU. I also don’t appreciate the shallow posturing of the Left and the SNP on this whilst ignoring the EU issue and our 0.7% aid.
I think the Brits could do a much better job as we used to do if we could take back some of our sovereign control.
September 5, 2015
David Cameron today:
“We are already the second largest bi-lateral donor of aid to the Syrian conflict and today I can announce that we will provide a further 100 million pounds taking our total contribution to over a billion pounds. That is the UK’s largest ever response to a humantarian crisis”…….
There is a sentence missing from that speech………….
“But if you have paid taxes for 40+ years and have cancer we would rather you just died.”