Category Archives: Europe
A stork fights neo-Nazis
First some ground explanations. Here in Germany, the favourite fashion label of neo-Nazi’s is Thor Steinar. The brand was banned in Germany in 2004 because its logo lookred like that of the Nazi period SS. The label subsequently rebranded itself and now has a legally acceptable logo. In any case, the neo-Nazis love it and it is… Read More »
Grim story of asylum application denied, self-sacrifice, and possible denial of citizenship
The boy was 13 when a dawn immigration raid abruptly ended his father’s four-year quest for political asylum in Britain. By nightfall of that day in 2005, father and son were hundreds of miles from home, locked in the privately run Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Center here, scheduled for deportation to their native Angola in… Read More »
On The Wonderful Wizard of Oz – a bimetallism allegory
The American Civil War provided the opportunity for introducing a national monopoly currency. In 1879, having won the war and built up its gold reserves, the federal government finally felt able to back its dollars with gold. Immediately voices arose seeking to make money plural again. The People’s Party (better known as the Populists) found… Read More »
Michael Lewis on the Germans
I recently read Michael Lewis’ The Big Short, a very instructive book on the recent financial that looks at the crisis from the point of view those who made money from it. So when I learnt from the Planet Money blog that he has written a piece for Vanity Fair on the country I now call… Read More »
Norwegian comments on US coverage of the Norway terror
Magnus Nome in Open Democracy: While American cable news was not very good at its job, the Hall of Shame is reserved for others. Worst of them all, former FOX employee Glenn Beck, who saw fit to compare the slaughtered youth of a democratic organisation in a free country to the compulsory, paramilitary, racist Hitlerjugend.… Read More »
“Europe needs Africa. Who’d have thought it?”
…is the title of a piece by Knox Chitiyo for the Guardian. An excerpt: The UK’s engagement with Africa is often expressed in terms of a “new scramble for Africa“, but this misses out what Africa wants. Certainly Africa wants partnerships with the west, but these need to be equal partnerships that also serve Africa’s… Read More »
The Euro Crisis Song
From the Guardian, HT naked capitalism. Enjoy!
Europeans against Multiculturalism
John R. Bowen in Boston Review: Political criticisms of multiculturalism confuse three objects. One is the changing cultural and religious landscape of Europe. Postwar France and Britain encouraged immigration of willing workers from former colonies; Germany drew on its longstanding ties with Turkey for the same purpose; somewhat later, new African and Asian immigrants, many… Read More »
Germany and the Eurozone crisis
John Lanchester in LRB: If European monetary policy is run according to German national interests, huge structural imbalances will accumulate. The Germans will then either have to pay to correct those imbalances, or agree that the euro should not be run primarily according to German national interests. If they are unwilling to do either of… Read More »