BS: Fred Forsyth's Letter to Angela Merkel

Subject: BS: Fred Forsyth's Letter to Angela Merkel
From: Fossil
Date: 09 Jan 12 - 05:23 PM

Normally I don't have a lot of patience with cut 'n pasters, but the text below is doing the Internet rounds purporting to be an open letter from author Frederick Forsyth to the German chancellor, Angela Merkel about the euro-crisis and Britain's refusal to join the euro-rescue plan put forward at the recent Heads of Government meeting. I'm a committed European Brit, and felt that David Cameron was making a horrendous mistake. But Forsyth offers a different and quite interesting perspective. what do the rest of the 'cat think?

AN OPEN LETTER TO GERMAN CHANCELLOR ANGELA MERKEL
By Frederick Forsyth

Dear Madam Chancellor

PERMIT me to begin this letter with a brief description of my knowledge of, and affection for, your country.

I first came to Germany as a boy student aged 13 in 1952, two years before you were born. After three extended vacations with German families who spoke no English I found at the age of 16 and to my pleasure that I could pass for German among Germans.

In my 20s I was posted as a foreign correspondent to East Germany in 1963, when you would have been a schoolgirl just north of East Berlin where I lived.

I know Germany, Frau Merkel, from the alleys of Hamburg to the spires of Dresden, from the Rhine to the Oder, from the bleak Baltic coast to the snows of the Bavarian Alps. I say this only to show you that I am neither ignoramus nor enemy.

I also had occasion in those years to visit the many thousands of my countrymen who held the line of the Elbe against 50,000 Soviet main battle tanks and thus kept Germany free to recover, modernise and prosper at no defence cost to herself.

And from inside the Cold War I saw our decades of effort to defeat the Soviet empire and set your East Germany free.

I was therefore disappointed last Friday to see you take the part of a small and vindictive Frenchman in what can only be seen as a targeted attack on the land of my fathers.

We both know that every country has at least one aspect of its society or economy that is so crucial, so vital that it simply cannot be conceded.

For Germany it is surely your automotive sector, your car industry.

Any foreign-sourced measure to target German cars and render them unsaleable would have to be opposed to vetopoint by a German chancellor.

For France it is the agricultural sector. For more than 50 years members of the EU have been taxed under the terms of the Common Agricultural Policy in order to subsidise France's agriculture. Indeed, the CAP has been the cornerstone of every EU budget since the first day.

Attack it and France fights back.

For us the crucial corner of our economy is the financial services industry. Although parts of it exist all over the country it is concentrated in that part of London known even internationally as "the City".

It is not just a few greedy bankers; we both have those but the City is far more. It is indeed a vast banking agglomeration of more banks than anywhere else in the world.

But that is the tip of the iceberg. Also in the City is the world's greatest concentration of insurance companies.

Add to that the brokers; traders in stocks and shares worldwide, second only, and then maybe not, to Wall Street. But it is not just stocks.

The City is also home to the "exchanges" of gold and precious metals, diamonds, base metals, commodities, futures, derivatives, coffee, cocoa… the list goes on and on.

And it does not yet touch upon shipping, aviation, fuels, energy, textiles… enough. Suffice to say the City is the biggest and busiest marketplace in the world.

It makes the Paris Bourse look like a parish council set against the United Nations and even dwarfs your Frankfurt many times.

That, surely, is the point of what happened in Brussels. The French wish to wreck it and you seem to have agreed. Its contribution to the British economy is not simply useful nor even merely valuable.

It is absolutely crucial. The financial services industry contributes 10 per cent of our Gross Domestic Product and 17.5 per cent of our taxation revenue.

A direct and targeted attack on the City is an attack on my country. But that, although devised in Paris, is what you have chosen to support.

You seem to have decided that Britain is once again Germany's enemy, a situation that has not existed since 1945.

I deeply regret this but the choice was yours and entirely yours. The Transaction Tax or Tobin Tax you reserve the right to impose would not even generate money for Brussels.

It would simply lead to massive emigration from London to other havens. Long ago it was necessary to live in a city to trade in it.

In the days when deals can flash across the world in a nanosecond all a major brokerage needs is a suite of rooms, computers, telephones and the talent of the young people barking offers and agreements down the phone.

Such a suite of rooms could be in Berne, Thun, Zurich or even Singapore. Under your Tobin Tax tens of thousands would leave London.

This would not help Brussels, it would simply help destroy the British economy.

Your conference did not even save the euro. Permit me a few home truths about it. The euro is a Franco-German construct.

It was a German chancellor (Kohl) who ordered a German banker (Karl Otto Pohl) to get together with a French civil servant (Delors) on the orders of a French president (Mitterrand) and create a common currency.

Which they did. IT was a flawed construct. Like a ship with a twisted hull it might float in calm water but if it ever hit a force eight it would probably founder.

Even then it might have worked for it was launched with a manual of rules, the Growth And Stability Pact. If the terms of that book of rules had been complied with the Good Ship Euro might have survived.

But compliance was entrusted to the European Central Bank which catastrophically failed to insist on that compliance.

Rules governing the growing of cucumbers are more zealously enforced. This was a European Bank in a German city under a French president and it failed in its primary, even its sole, duty.

This had everything to do with France and Germany and nothing whatever to do with Britain.

Yet in Brussels last week the EU pack seemed intent only on venting its spleen on the country that wisely refused to abolish its pound.

You did not even address yourselves to saving the euro but only to seeking a way to ensure it might work in some future time.

But the euro will not be saved. It is crumbling now. And since you have now turned against my country, from this side of the Channel, Madame Chancellor, one can only say of the euro: YOU MADE IT, YOU MEND IT.

Frederick Forsyth

Subject: RE: BS: Fred Forsyth's Letter to Angela Merkel
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 09 Jan 12 - 05:38 PM

Codswallop.

Subject: RE: BS: Fred Forsyth's Letter to Angela Merkel
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 09 Jan 12 - 05:49 PM

I'm not sure that anyone defending the Bankers of the City of London or Wall Street for that matter has any room to squeal about "compliance."

Subject: RE: BS: Fred Forsyth's Letter to Angela Merkel
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 09 Jan 12 - 06:33 PM

If it's true, what an idiot.

Subject: RE: BS: Fred Forsyth's Letter to Angela Merkel
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 09 Jan 12 - 06:59 PM

I read that Cameron and most representants of British economy and Tory establishment have a strong interest in a closer cooperation in Europe (conditions of course to be negotiated), but some of their backbenchers have pledged to the contrary for the "populist" vote.

According to many commentators, a worlwide (moderate) tax on financial transactions would have a welcome calming effect on the markets, on top of the welcome revenue. It seems not to come true though, since those who refuse to cooperate hope for additional profit. A dangerous game of poker; the next crisis is approaching.

In my personal view it is a mistake to think too much in terms of countries when analysing politics. Think in terms of political parties and alliances, think about the global players in economy. "Patriotic" (populist) speeches are for the stupid masses.

Subject: RE: BS: Fred Forsyth's Letter to Angela Merkel
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 10 Jan 12 - 03:51 AM

Where did you read that, guest Grishka? My impression is that Cameron is opposed to a closer co-operation with Europe.

And why would a transaction tax calm markets? Simply because it might reduce the volume of financial transactions?

Subject: RE: BS: Fred Forsyth's Letter to Angela Merkel
From: DMcG
Date: 10 Jan 12 - 05:05 AM

Simply because it might reduce the volume of financial transactions?
It should eliminate transactions where the financial return is very small (in global financial terms!!!), but whether that would any significant calming effect is hard to judge.

As for Fred, his position is hardly new: he has been opposed to the euro as long as I can remember. Not that consistancy is a bad thing, but it is not really newsworthy.

Subject: RE: BS: Fred Forsyth's Letter to Angela Merkel
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 10 Jan 12 - 05:40 AM

The Euro was (I always thought) a flawed idea but it was the growth of the EU to so many members that increased the tensions. That, however, is not the point at the moment. The point is how to avoid the Euro going into meltdown and worsening the global recession. Playing Johnny Englander increased that risk.

Subject: RE: BS: Fred Forsyth's Letter to Angela Merkel
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 10 Jan 12 - 07:38 AM

The fate of the Euro will not be changed in any way by what Cameron does, or does not do.
As was alluded to in the diatribe attributed to FF, the rules were not policed properly, and countries were allowed to borrow, way over the limit of GDP proscribed in the rules of the EU.
The EU budget itself has not been agreed, or signed off by the auditors for many years, as they cannot be reconciled.
A one size fits all policy will never work, when applied across countries with economies as varied as Greece and Germany.
They have painted themself into a corner by refusing to consider any other solution except continuation of the headlong rush to mass bankruptcy. Ireland, Greece, Italy, Spain, and whatever over borrowed economy next?
The preferred option seems to be for the World Bank to print more money, and dig them all out that way.
If you are against our government bailing out Northern Rock, and RBS, then you should be against the same thing being done for the Euro.
I voted YES to join the Common Market, as I think derestricted trade, and free movement of labour across borders is a good idea. I do not recognise this monster that the Common Market has become.
I feel the need of a silver bullet, or a wooden stake.

Subject: RE: BS: Fred Forsyth's Letter to Angela Merkel
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 10 Jan 12 - 08:14 AM

No, Giok, your first assertion cannot be right. The proposed changes to the Treaty of Lisbon and enhanced enforcement mechanisms were (at least were thought to be) stabilising and of assistance in defending against currency speculators. The UK refusing to join such a thing impaired the plan's prospects of success simply because it reduced solidarity.

Additionally, if a Tobin tax reduces trading volumes that too will reduce volatility, although I'm doubtful if it would do so by much.

The real enemies are "financial markets" and we do not help ourselves by treating them as our masters. What we need to do is to control them.

Subject: RE: BS: Fred Forsyth's Letter to Angela Merkel
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 10 Jan 12 - 08:53 AM

If you are looking forward to an retirement pension, then you are reliant on the financial markets.
Private pension funds invest on the Stock Exchange, and buy Government Bonds in order to increase the pension of their members. Remember that, like the majority of us, the money you pay towards your pension weekly, or monthly will go nowhere near giving you a pension you can live on, after retirement. With PPF's, they raise the extra via the Stock Exchange, with government pensions, we pay the extra
The contributions we make from our wages to the government, in the form of NIC and taxes, are all spend as soon as they are received, if not before, by the government of the day. Among the things they spend it on, is the retirement pensions of those already retired. A large part of the governments income, includes taxes paid by those same financial institutions.
Money goes round, every time a penny turns it's head it is taxed, and on that fact alone, we finanace the world.

Subject: RE: BS: Fred Forsyth's Letter to Angela Merkel
From: DMcG
Date: 10 Jan 12 - 12:59 PM

It may well be how we 'finance the world', but it is always worth bearing in mind that Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" had a rather different view to that usually attributed to him:

Though labour be the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities, it is not that by which their value is commonly estimated. It is often difficult to ascertain the proportion between two different quantities of labour. The time spent in two different sorts of work will not always alone determine this proportion. The different degrees of hardship endured, and of ingenuity exercised, must likewise be taken into account. There may be more labour in an hour's hard work than in two hours easy business; or in an hour's application to a trade which it cost ten years labour to learn, than in a month's industry at an ordinary and obvious employment. But it is not easy to find any accurate measure either of hardship or ingenuity. In exchanging indeed the different productions of different sorts of labour for one another, some allowance is commonly made for both. It is adjusted, however, not by any accurate measure, but by the higgling and bargaining of the market, according to that sort of rough equality which, though not exact, is sufficient for carrying on the business of common life

Let's remember that: the real value is the labour. The market is a mere rough higgling and bargaining.

Subject: RE: BS: Fred Forsyth's Letter to Angela Merkel
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 10 Jan 12 - 01:40 PM

Moreover, investment does not require a financial market to derive interest (or the Islamic equivalent of a fair reward). AFAIK the only things for which markets are essential are zero-sum-game (ie there's a winner and a loser) speculations.

Subject: RE: BS: Fred Forsyth's Letter to Angela Merkel
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 10 Jan 12 - 01:56 PM

OK, let's get rid of it then.
BTW what are you going to live on after retirement?

Subject: RE: BS: Fred Forsyth's Letter to Angela Merkel
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 10 Jan 12 - 06:17 PM

Richard Bridge, I'll try to find a link for you, e.g. to a BBC coverage, but I have no time at the moment. As all of us know, Cameron made a mighty show last year of his anti-European policy, but some journalists commented that this view is not his own, it has rather been imposed on him by backbenchers.

A transaction tax is meant to eliminate the very small and very frequent transactions made by computer programs, which currently have the effect of amplifying any nervousness to a downright panic. I cannot possibly say whether the tax is really a good idea, but all I heard Cameron say against it is that it is not in the British interest.

Whenever I read something about "British interest", or German, or Greek interests etc., I always smell propaganda for the person's own interests. In Cameron's case, his main interest may be to keep the support of the Tory backbenchers, and perhaps to please the tabloid press.

Subject: RE: BS: Fred Forsyth's Letter to Angela Merkel
From: GUEST,Teribus
Date: 10 Jan 12 - 07:56 PM

Adam Smith 1723 to 1790 - How relevant

Subject: RE: BS: Fred Forsyth's Letter to Angela Merkel
From: DMcG
Date: 11 Jan 12 - 07:35 AM

Oh, I'm not claiming our thoughts haven't developed since 1790. But if you haven't heard a conservative-inclined think tank refer to "The Wealth of Nations" in the past few years you haven't been paying attention. And there's a reason we have one called "The Adam Smith Institute", you know. But it is questionable, given that quote, whether Adam Smith would support some of the things implicitly in his name.

Subject: RE: BS: Fred Forsyth's Letter to Angela Merkel
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 11 Jan 12 - 10:25 AM

Smith's "business of common life" seems to imply infinite natural resources - which was not valid in his time, and is completely wrong nowadays. The same applies to the idea of fair competition at a completely transparent market, free from political power games.

I do not claim to be a better philosopher of economics than Smith was (in fact I do not claim to be any at all), but even the best ideas can be turned to utter stupidity by being taken literally or absolutely.