TEc - Disunited states of Europe - EU woes

The title to Charlemagne's latest piece is fitting enough.
Tellingly it wraps up the actual root cause of most macro problems now facing the EU.

I was never in any doubt that EU integration would be a slow, painful often heated-and-prone-to-setback process spread out over decades.
How could nations that lived at loggerheads with each other, in fierce competition and animosity over centuries ever hope to stand as one after a handful of years?

That said I cannot help being awed at the level of disunity that has surfaced thanks largely to a flawed economic model. A model based on seeking permanent help from money lenders to plug mounting deficits as if there was no tomorrow.
Rolling debt is acceptable until the debt pile is so huge as to become unmanageable. Yet this is exactly what happened to Southern European countries (Spain excepted), Ireland and outlier UK.

Uncertainty remains the only meaningful word.
The Eurozone's complexity is far from being approached aiming for resolution through balanced compromise.

While I instinctively agree with the points you've raised I am yet to see that silver lining come into full view.
There never was such good timing for a serious review of sorts and ways within societies. Much, however, hinges on prevailing dynamics in each of them. The way government and various leaderships across the full spectrum play out their stakes also featuring decisively.
I would hope to see balanced change driven by a greater goal come about.
As critical as it is for main bodies from civil society to rise up to the times, governments too must lead the way. Not by playing Daddy but by preventing or managing conflict wisely always for the greater good of the greatest number.

Failure to do so will mean a relapse to the very causes of the current mess. Such a mess would then perpetuate itself.
Each man for himself would signal a civilizational leap backwards most of us would not wish for.

TEc - On the home front - Angela, the German Chancellor

Internal politics was always bound to catch up with the German chancellor. In fact, it has never been a sideshow at those EU summits. After all she was voted into office to uphold the interests of Germans first.

This is exactly the point at which the European Union project looms large in the picture.
Do common folk in Germany understand just how much they have profited individually and collectively from a pan-European community of nations since its inception in the early fifties?
Do their political representatives care to tell them enough, standing up for factual evidence and in keeping with great German leaders even in the recent past?

It is of course a complex situation that the Eurozone has arrived at but one that demands Statesmanship, whatever that is meant to be nowadays! When financial markets clearly gained the upper hand.
The coming months will put AM's leadership of her country and her vision of the EU's relevance to Germany to the test again and again.

There is plenty of homework for indebted countries to accomplish whether they belonged in a currency union or not. Germany, however, also needs to change its handling of EU matters.
If not, the Union - whose visionary founding fathers and European believers - will stay adrift to eventually founder altogether. Or metamorphose into an irrelevant entity loosely binding utterly different nations unable to work as a bloc.
Nations that never truly overcame popular perceptions of each other..., some of their current leaders actually sharpening those perceptions beyond any rational argument.

It is good Chancellor AM remains strong at home.
She should now start mustering that credibility in the best interests of the German nation bound in Europe well into the future.
Will she?

TEc - Diamond's not forever - On Bob diamond

I'm glad that the authoritative 'The Economist' has had J.O. write a brief yet highly relevant piece.
Will not get interpretative of the man's actions or omissions but there are facts that speak louder than a million words said under whatever pretence.

Such appears to be the case just as we were losing faith in regulators and watchdogs to simply do their job dutifully for the greater good of the greatest number. For fairness, for balance.
In the wake of the financial and banking crisis started in the US in 2007, whose after-effects are being felt by millions, the least that can be expected of top management at banks and financial groups is for them to welcome becoming more accountable.
And check their pay and perks as well for wholesome disproportionate greed, in the main geared to self-agrandizement.

If wrongdoing is confirmed the public expect the gentleman and whoever else connived with him to feel the full brunt of whichever institution is in place to stop bad practices.
Especially in as sensitive a sector whose top leadership must endeavour to regain the trust of the general public.