by Dr. Matthias Rath
10 March, 2016
from Dr-Rath-Foundation Website




 


Lord Mervyn King,

former Governor of the Bank of England
Image by International Monetary Fund

[CC BY-NC-ND 2.0], via Flickr.com


 

In a little-reported statement given on March 1st at the influential London School of Economics in the UK, Lord Mervyn King, the former Governor of the Bank of England, confirmed that the financial crisis afflicting Europe since 2009 is essentially the result of a "deliberate" act of policy.

 

Highly critical of the destructive economic strategies of the Brussels EU, he predicted that, in order to free its weakest member countries from the strangulating combination of austerity measures and high unemployment they are suffering from, the euro currency zone will have to be dismantled. 

 

Citing the example of Greece, where the unemployment rate is currently almost 25 percent, Lord King described what has happened over the past 7 years as an "appalling" example of Brussels EU economic policy failure.

 

He added that, for the poorest Eurozone countries, the long-term benefits of ditching the euro and returning to their national currencies outweigh the short-term costs.

 

 

 

 

Head of Brussels EU Commission predicted European financial crisis back in 2001

 

 

Romano Prodi,

president of Brussels EU Commission 1999-2004
Image by European Parliament

[CC BY-NC-ND 2.0], via Flickr.com

 

 

But Mervyn King is hardly the first high-level official to confirm that Europe's economic malaise has been inflicted on its citizens deliberately.

 

In a barely-noticed article in the Financial Times back in 2001, the then president of the Brussels EU Commission, Romano Prodi, stated that he was sure,

"the euro will oblige us to introduce a new set of economic policy instruments."

 

"It is politically impossible to propose that now", he went on. "But some day there will be a crisis and new instruments will be created."

Since its introduction to world financial markets in 1999, observers have repeatedly pointed out that the euro was flawed.

 

Significantly, even Jacques Delors, its architect, eventually admitted that the currency was doomed from the start, declaring that European leaders chose to turn a blind eye to the fundamental weaknesses and imbalances of member states' economies.

 

Viewed in the historical light of Romano Prodi's 2001 statement, of course, it is now clear why they did this.

 

In short, the financial crisis in Europe has been created deliberately to enable the Brussels EU elite to use it as the rationale for bringing in new laws that move the construct closer to the political dictatorship that was intended all along.

 

 

 

 

The Brussels EU is incapable of reform

 

 

 

 

Across Europe, senior officials are increasingly coming to the inescapable conclusion that the Brussels EU is not capable of reform.

 

The latest prominent example of this came following the recent resignation of John Longworth from his post as director-general of the powerful British Chambers of Commerce business group.

 

After taking the decision to resign from his position to enable him to speak out freely over the issue of Britain's upcoming referendum on its Brussels EU membership, Longworth openly described the construct as "incapable of meaningful reform".

 

Accusing British Prime Minister David Cameron of trying to scaremonger the British people into voting to remain in the bloc, he predicted that Britain could have a bright economic future after leaving it.  

 

Due to its fundamentally undemocratic structure - with the EU Commission holding all executive power and the EU Parliament serving merely as a fig leaf - the Brussels EU needs to be publicly rejected by its citizens, dismantled, and eventually replaced by a truly democratic system of representation:

A Europe for the People, by the People.

Until such time as this happens, however, the 500 million people of Europe will continue to remain subject to economic dictatorship, widespread unemployment, and a political model in which democracy increasingly becomes a thing of the past.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Euro Depression is 'Deliberate' EU Choice

-   Says Former Bank of England Chief   -
by Mehreen Khan
01 March 2016

from TheTelegraph Website
 

 

 

 


Europe's deep economic malaise

is the result of "deliberate" policy choices

made by EU elites, according to the former

governor of the Bank of England.
 

 

 

Lord King says r

esults of Europe's policy failures

have been 'appalling' and 'deliberate'

 

 

Lord Mervyn King continued his scathing assault on Europe's economic and monetary union, having predicted the beleaguered currency zone will need to be dismantled to free its weakest members from unremitting austerity and record levels of unemployment.

 

Speaking at the launch of his new book, Lord King said he could never have envisaged an economic collapse of the depths of the 1930s returning to Europe's shores in the modern age.

But the fate of Greece since 2009 - which has suffered a contraction eclipsing the US depression in the inter-war years - was an "appalling" example of economic policy failure, he told an audience at the London School of Economics.
 

 

The depths of Greece's depression

Credit: RBS economics/RBS
 

"In the euro area, the countries in the periphery have nothing at all to offset austerity. They are simply being asked to cut total spending without any form of demand to compensate. I think that is a serious problem.

"I never imagined that we would ever again in an industrialized country have a depression deeper than the United States experienced in the 1930s and that's what's happened in Greece.

"It is appalling and it has happened almost as a deliberate act of policy which makes it even worse".

Lord King - who spent a decade fighting the worst financial crisis in history at the Bank of England - has said the weakest Eurozone members face little choice but to return to their national currencies as,

"the only way to plot a route back to economic growth and full employment".

 

Lord King,

former Bank of England chief, 2003-2013
 

"The long-term benefits outweigh the short-term costs," he writes in The End of Alchemy.

The former Bank governor has said popular disillusion with EU economic policies are likely to lead to disintegration of the single currency rather than a move towards "completing" monetary union.

Two of the Eurozone's debtor nations - Ireland and Spain - are currently locked in electoral stalemate after their pro-bail-out governments failed to win the backing of voters.

But the European Commission has defended itself against claims that punishing austerity measures have made incumbent European regimes unelectable, arguing that Brussels' economic policy represents a "virtuous triangle" of austerity, structural reforms and investment.

Outside of the Eurozone, Lord King warned against undue pessimism about the longer-term prospects for the world economy, dismissing the "secular stagnation" thesis made popular in recent years by the likes of US treasury secretary Larry Summers.

He said it was a "serious mistake" to believe that productivity - which has flatlined across the developed world since the crisis - would never revive as technological development has been exhausted.

 


It is appalling

and it has happened

almost as a deliberate act of policy

which makes it even worse
Mervyn King
 


Instead, current waves of new research and innovation meant the 21st century was the "golden age of scientific discovery".

"I see absolutely no reason to suppose that because we had a banking crisis and a recession that [ideas, innovation and entrepreneurship] have permanently disappeared. They haven't and are waiting to spring back.

"The thinking that all these ideas will not come through to have practical ways of improving our living standards, seem extraordinarily pessimistic and something for which there is no basis in fact at all over the last 250 years of economic growth."

Lord King's book lays out a critique of the endemic imbalances which have plagued the global economy in recent decades.

 

Failure to tackle the disparities between high savings and high spending rates in different parts of the world could see policymakers sleepwalk into another crisis, he has warned.

Meanwhile, central bank policies to boost levels of demand and encourage spending were necessary but not sufficient answers to the world's growth malaise, only "buying time" for policymakers.

"We have to use that time to shift economies from their present disequilibrium to a new equilibrium where there is a proper balance between spending and saving, exports and consumption," he said.

"Only then can we achieve rapid growth, and stable inflation. That is the prize. I think we can do it."

 

***

 


Biography
Mervyn Allister King

Born: March 30, 1948 in Chesham Bois, Buckinghamshire
Married: Barbara Melander, 2007

Education

1966-1969: MA, First Class in Economics, King's College, Cambridge
1971-1972: Kennedy Scholar, Harvard University

Career

1984-1990: professor of Economics, London School of Economics
1990-1991: non-executive director, Bank of England
1991-1998: Chief economist, Bank of England
1998-2003: Deputy governor, Bank of England
2003-2013: Governor of the Bank of England
2014: Professor of Economics, New York University
2015: School Professor of Economics, London School of Economics

Honors

2013: appointed member of the House of Lords as Baron King of Lothbury
2014: becomes one of only 24 people to be made Order of the Garter, the oldest and most important British order of chivalry
2016: appointed to Board of directors, Aston Villa Football Club