Tag Archives: European Union

Labour wanted mass immigration to make UK more multicultural, says former adviser

open quote The huge increases in migrants over the last decade were partly due to a politically motivated attempt by ministers to radically change the country and “rub the Right’s nose in diversity”, according to Andrew Neather, a former adviser to Tony Blair, Jack Straw and David Blunkett.

He said Labour’s relaxation of controls was a deliberate plan to “open up the UK to mass migration” but that ministers were nervous and reluctant to discuss such a move publicly for fear it would alienate its “core working class vote”.

As a result, the public argument for immigration concentrated instead on the economic benefits and need for more migrants.

Critics said the revelations showed a “conspiracy” within Government to impose mass immigration for “cynical” political reasons. close quote (Read more)

French President Hollande Wants 75% Tax Bracket

open quoteThe French government’s reaction won’t just be indignation. If Hollande has his way, Ibrahimovic will get socked with a 75 percent income tax on his new mega-salary. Same goes for anyone earning more than about $1.2 million a year in France.

Hollande is trying to lower France’s deficit in order to stave off contagion from other faltering eurozone countries such as Spain. The loudest complaints about the 75 percent tax bracket come, predictably, from those who stand to pay it.

At a small hotel in Paris, Sophie Canipel says she once liked the idea of inheriting this place from her parents. But with the top-tier tax, she says, she’ll be ruined.

“Right now, as upper middle class people, my husband and I are paying around 45 percent in income taxes each year,” Canipel says. “When I inherit the hotel from my parents we’ll get bumped up into that 75 percent tax bracket because the value of the place will be counted as income. There’ll be nothing left over for us.”close quote (Read more)

German Foreign Minister sets out plans for European political union

From Open Europe Summary:

open quoteA group of ten EU Foreign Ministers, chaired by Germany’s Guido Westerwelle, have put forward proposals to use the eurozone crisis as a stepping stone towards establishing a ‘political union’ by transferring more power to the EU, including the creation of a European monetary fund, a European army and a European finance minister. The proposals were strongly criticised by Frank Schäffler, an MP with Westerwelle’s liberal FDP party, who argued that the plan was incompatible with liberal principles and that Europe “doesn’t need a centralised and planned economy.”close quote

The march toward tyranny.

European Court Says Getting Sick On Vacation Means You Get A Do-Over

open quoteThey’re already entitled to four to six weeks of guaranteed vacation leave per year, and now a court there just ruled that workers who happen to fall ill while on vacation are legally entitled to get a do-over on their trip. Who needs tips about how to not get sick on vacation with a loophole like that?

The decision came about after department store workers in Spain brought a case to Spanish court, where they won, arguing that collective bargaining agreements distinguish a clear line between annual leave and sick leave.

The National Association of Large Distribution Businesses then appealed to the Supreme Court in Madrid, which then handed the matter over to Europe’s highest court, says the New York Times.

“The purpose of entitlement to paid annual leave is to enable the worker to rest and enjoy a period of relaxation and leisure,” the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled. “The purpose of entitlement to sick leave is different, since it enables a worker to recover from an illness that has caused him to be unfit for work.”

A previous ruling had held that a sick person could reschedule a trip if they got sick right before it, but has now extended that provision to the vacation itself, saying, “The point at which the temporary incapacity arose is irrelevant.”

All 27 countries in the European Union will be held to the court’s decision. That means 27 potential future homes.close quote (Read more)

Anti-democratic, Anti-sovereign banking Union Enveloping EU

open quoteA classified draft of next week’s EU summit conclusions is the first step on an emerging “roadmap” to a banking union, pooling debt via eurobonds and political union via EU treaty change over the next 10 years.

The “limite” text – published exclusively by The Daily Telegraph, is secret, restricted for the “eyes only” of diplomats and officials preparing for the 28 and 29 June European Council in Brussels.

Most of the text, the annexed “Compact for Growth and Jobs”, are deals on project bonds and other small scale EU initiatives that FranCois Hollande is trumpeting as a €120bn “growth pact”.

The first draft is relatively uncontroversial because the eurobond and “banking union” issues are currently all too sensitive to be committed to paper for officials.

Other so-called “non-papers” are circulating at a top secret level between national capitals and Brussels. close quote (Read more)

Bernanke admits that he is ready–AGAIN–to lend dollars to Europe

open quoteThe moves in Britain are the latest in a flurry of recent actions taken by European governments and central banks trying to arrest the continent’s more-than-two-year crisis. Late last year, the European Central Bank started doling out more than €1 trillion, or about $1.25 trillion, of cheap three-year loans to hundreds of banks that were at risk of running short of funds. Last week, the Spanish government said it would request up to €100 billion to help its crippled banking system.

In the U.S., Fed officials say they are prepared to reactivate several programs to provide short-term funding to markets if conditions deteriorate. Those programs, originally created during the 2008-09 financial crisis, offered cheap loans to banks and flooded the U.S. financial system with liquidity to prevent strains.

The U.S. central bank is also providing dollar funding to Europe through the European Central Bank to ensure that continent’s financial institutions have access to the U.S. currency, which they use to make loans around the world.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke last week said those currency swap lines were “very helpful in reducing stress in dollar-funding markets.” close quote (Read more)

letter to National Review Magazine re: The Real Cause of the Euro Debt Crisis

From Patrick Barron: open quoteDear Sirs:
In his essay “Four Kinds of Dreadful”, John O’Sullivan discusses the possible outcomes of the Greek debt crisis (which really is a euro debt crisis). It is important that readers understand the cause of the crisis. Mr. O’Sullivan repeats some common misconceptions about that cause when he states that:

“Its original design was flawed because it sought to include too many countries with too-diverse economic characters and histories, too-different levels of unemployment, and so on.” He later states that “Above all, the euro zone did not include…transnational labor mobility; and transnational monetary transfers.” And finally, that “a single currency required a single budget, a single treasury, and a single fiscal policy.”

None of these reasons is the cause of the crisis. First of all, there is nothing to prevent people with different characters, etc. from adopting a common currency. Here in the US we have many people with different characters, different levels of productivity, etc. all using the dollar. There may indeed be cultural barriers to labor mobility, but several nations with different cultures have adopted the dollar as their national currency. Finally, all fifty states of the union use the dollar, without requiring that they meld their budgets, treasuries, and fiscal policies.

The real cause of the euro debt crisis has been explained by Dr. Philipp Bagus of King Juan Carlos University in his book, The Tragedy of the Euro. Dr. Bagus explains that the European System of Central Banks did not eliminate national central banks. These national central banks buy their respective country’s sovereign debt and use that debt as collateral for euro loans at the European Central bank. The result is predictable. All seventeen members of the European Monetary Union have the ability to monetize their government’s sovereign debt and force monetary inflation on the rest of the members. It is similar to having seventeen counterfeiters trying to outdo one another. First debt soared, and now inflation is being felt even in the more responsible nations such as Germany, because all use the euro.

There is no solution to this problem, as the euro is currently constructed. Fiscal treaties to prevent the inevitable money printing will be ignored, since there is no enforcement mechanism. Furthermore, there never will be an enforcement mechanism, because the seventeen members are sovereign nations with electorates that must be mollified. The euro was doomed from the day it was born.close quote