Paleo Retiree writes:
I’ve been loving following the in-the-wake-of-Brexit debates. Interesting times, to put it mildly. Here are some of the essays, op-eds and articles that I’ve gotten the most out of.
- Was the EU formed in order to avoid another large European war? Was it really as simple as all that? No, says Ukip founder Alan Sked.
- No, says the respected financial journalist Ambrose Evans-Pritchard.
- No, says the leftie economist Michael Hudson.
- No, says loose cannon Paul Craig Roberts.
- A fiery rant by John Pilger.
- The excellent Andrew Bacevich writes what strikes me as a level-headed analysis.
- A view from Greece.
- Jonathan Cook takes a hilarious look at the Progressive reaction to Brexit.
- Matt Taibbi’s take is similar to Cook’s. “As a rule, people resent being saved from themselves,” he writes. “And if you think depriving people of their right to make mistakes makes sense, you probably never had respect for their right to make decisions at all.”
- Steve Sailer’s reaction isn’t so different either: “The near universal response of the punditry to a majority of Brits voting to leave the E.U. has been so enraged that the average voter must have begun by now to notice that their furious elites just plain don’t like them,” Steve writes.
- Add Glenn Greenwald to the chorus. “As their fundamental failures become more evident to all, these [political and media] elites have lost credibility, influence, and the ability to dictate outcomes,” he writes.
- Nassim (“The Black Swan”) Taleb thinks the EU is “doomed to fail” in any case.
- Interesting to see that Brexit is giving hope to some other European secession movements.
- Antidote to the craziness: a flight of four beers (an American IPA, a Euro IPA, a far-out sour, and a Porter from the Northwest), served up by this excellent bar. There’s little I like doing more than comparing and contrasting alcoholic beverages.
Blowhard, Esq.
Callowman
Sherbrooke
Eddie Pensier
Enzo Nakamura
Epaminondas
Fabrizio del Wrongo
Fenster
Brundle Guy
Glynn Marshes
Paleo Retiree
Atypical Neurotic
Question Lady
Sax von Stroheim
Sir Barken Hyena
The Mistaken
Uncouth Reflections 
The EU is an example of an organisation that was captured by the Left. Monnet, De Gaspari, and Adenauer would not recognise today’s EU. The idea of a “United States of Europe” in which everyone’s identity would be subsumed by some overriding “European” identity would have been as absurd to them as it would have been to the current English.
I don’t know if any of you guys were observant enough to note that during the last Greek crisis, just as the Germans were beginning to dig their heels in, the FRENCH came to the rescue and helped keep the Greeks in.
The quiet story running in the background of the EU, and European politics, is the increasing influence of the the French socialists is determining its direction. France see’s itself as the leader of Europe and French socialists see themselves as the leaders of France. Germany is essentially France’s bitch. France provides the brains and the Germans the money. Germany see’s this but is so wracked with war-guilt that it dare not assert itself. The Euro, i.e. control of european currency was opposed by Germany but was the price it had to pay for unification.
From this article:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/the-price-of-unity-was-the-deutsche-mark-sacrificed-for-reunification-a-719940.html
“Hubert Védrine, who served as an adviser to then-French President Francois Mitterrand, for example, is convinced that his boss would not have consented to any expansion of Germany without German concessions on monetary union. “Mitterrand did not want reunification without advances toward greater European integration,” Védrine says. “And the currency was the only topic that was open to debate.” ”
The Bundesbank had it’s nuts chopped off.
What happens in France happens in the rest of Europe.
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My favorite reactions were the progs desperately looking for something bad to point to as a result of a nativist referendum — and began spreading sob stories about the poor big bankers and the investor class, who looked like they were going to get clobbered the next day.
How many times have we heard them denounce the trickle-down economics of the Reagan years? Now we’re supposed to feel like any loss of mega-banker bucks is somehow going to make life worse for the bottom 80%, when it is really just illusory wealth vanishing from the overhyped stock market, that was not being put to productive use in the first place.
When forced to choose sides between the working-class populist xenophobes and the corporate elitist bankers, the progressives have revealed their true colors in the class war. Worse than useless — traitors.
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