Monday, March 1, 2010

Economic Junk

Prime Minister of Luxembourg Jean-Claude Juncker says, "We have to strengthen the primacy of politics. It must be able to stop the financial markets."

Er, no.

The Soviets tried that one. Robert Mugabe and the North Koreans are still trying. Fixed rates and price controls are the way to queues, corruption and economic stagnation.
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3 comments:

  1. It may not be possible for individual countries to stop multi-national financial markets and speculation, but I see no reason why joint international action should not be able to have some effect, if only, say, the elimination of tax-havens and some form of regulation to try and prevent recurrences of the recent banking failures.
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  2. The problem with the recent financial collapse was not the presence of regulation, but the ability and willingness of the authorities to apply it. The FSA thought it was up to the Bank of England, the Bank of England thought it was the Treasury and the Treasury had as Chancellor of the Exchequer a certain Gordon Brown...
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  3. Fine. So you do believe in the financial markets being regulated, and presumably by politicians, amongst others. Your complaint now seems to be that it wasn't done. In which case, what was the point of your original comment, apart from an attempt at cheap humour at the expense of a European politician with a "silly" name? Reminds me rather of Nigel Farage's recent performance. Thinking of moving to UKIP?
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