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Point the first: The certain problem - the one thing which absolutely has to be fixed - is the ECB, and the total immunity to normal political feedback it enjoys.
It is possible that other things are also wrong, but as long as the ECB is clearly wrecking everything there is no way to tell. The Euro might be fine with a saner central bank - there is just no way to tell as long as the board is nuts.
Maybe what we need is more expansionary works problems, or import controls, or whatever, but judging by recent performance, any government policy that actually worked, would get sabotaged by the ECB.
So, forget everything else. What is needed is a way to cause the ECB to give a rats ass about the consequences of its actions.
Suggestions: Pickets. Boycotts (of the original, "noone will deal with or provide services to you, personally, for any amount of money" kind). Arrange for their kit and kin to join the ranks of the unemployed. Lobbying. Letter campaigns. A popular initiative to repeal the formal independence of the bank. It should be quite possible to meet the signature requirements for this, and even if it has no chance of passing soon, it should focus their minds.
All of the above.
The problem is the fiscal policies pursued by the national governments.
- Jake Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.
The ECB certainly must be brought to heel and eventually fully subjected to intrusive democratic controls. But by the time that happens, Greece and Spain and probably Italy will have already played out to their conclusion.
Once people realize that the ECB is essentially an endrun around the entire formal political structure, the status quo will last.. a month?
What you propose will be done over Germany's dead body. I distribute. You re-distribute. He gives your hard-earned money to lazy scroungers. -- JakeS
Which is not to say it should not be tried (or that they would fully succeed). But the last 40-50 years (and maybe beyond that) have had a striking tendency of the laws being interpreted differently when presented with a right-wing or left-wing situation. Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed. Gandhi
Accusation of criminal treason would probably at least trigger a temporary replacement. Especially if they were to act in a not insanely far right wet dream commie way. Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed. Gandhi
There is no contradiction at all in enshrining far-right policies into the constitution and then setting up an economic junta which is unaccountable as long as it enforce those policies.
But for the majority of public opinion in Europe today, the contradiction between the doctrine of independence and the fact of tight limits on independence should be a perfectly perceptible one -- if it were given sufficient play, of course (admittedly not easy to bring about).
Avtually no. Part of the european treaties, yes. But the independence of the bundesbank rested on a ordinary law.
>The entire German political establishment appears to agree that the ECB is configured as it should be<
A good part of said establishment now actually thinks that the ECB is misconfigured, Germany only having as much of a vote as the smaller states.
Apply all legal measures of persuasion and pressure you can think of until their desires change, and their new course of action is every bit as formally unstoppable.
Pressure them. Personally. People do not resist explicit moral censure from large groups very well.
The suggestion was to personalize the matter. I doubt that any currently legal pressure tactic can penetrate their protective bubble of studied indifference to the opinions, or well being, of the hoi-polloi.
It is possible today to get widescale movements of opinion going, and they may certainly include nominal criticism of persons in prominent public employment.
Possible, but difficult, I admit.
The ECB governing council is (according to that view) a for all practical purposes a group accountable only to itself and its cronies. Public opinion, in this view, doesn't matter. At all.
So the suggestion was, as it was euphemistically put, to "pressure them. Personally."
And since we are for the most part talking about experienced Lysenkoist hacks, the legal avenues for applying effective pressure to their persons are unlikely to be effective. People who are persuaded to abandon politically convenient idiocy by the mere fact that it kills people don't tend to make it to the governing board of the ECB.
legal avenues for applying effective pressure to their persons are unlikely to be effective
That much I agree with.
Pretending that the ECB is impartial and unaccountable, as if it were a court of sorts, is a shell game, not a serious statement of institutional reality.
1. Can they affect you personally? (Everything from a big payoff or nice lunch to being scorn at the supermarket or getting relatives whacked counts.) ==YES=> Ok, they matter. Weigh them against other concerns. (Like what benefits your position and power. Oh, and personal opinions if any are left.)
1. Can they affect you personally? (Everything from a big payoff or nice lunch to being scorn at the supermarket or getting relatives whacked counts.)
==YES=>
Ok, they matter. Weigh them against other concerns. (Like what benefits your position and power. Oh, and personal opinions if any are left.)
4. Can your position and power be affected by voting? ==NO=> They do not matter
4. Can your position and power be affected by voting? ==NO
=> They do not matter
Thomas was talking about much more pointed action, bordering on harassment:
Pickets. Boycotts (of the original, "noone will deal with or provide services to you, personally, for any amount of money" kind). Arrange for their kit and kin to join the ranks of the unemployed.
who are these people and how did they claw their way to such positions of nubridled, unregulated, unnaccountable power? why doesn't everyone know them, since their attitudes and actions determine the quality of life, even survival of hundreds of millions just inside the EU.
who coded this idiocy into the european constitution?
and how can it be undone as long as its presence and power are so shadowy? do they go through revolving doors into other positions of galactic power? 'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty
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