| 29 September 2011
The Eurozone crisis
rumbles on, with EU leaders finally daring to
utter the 'P' word in public, that's 'political
union'. All the money being thrown at Greece,
Portugal, Italy and Spain (the ECB is buying
their bonds like there is no tomorrow) will
be autumn leaves down the drain unless there
are unbreakable central rules to prevent politicians
from cooking the books in future.
Meanwhile, with the searchlights
fully switched on, the miscreant countries are
pretending to be good, putting on innocent expressions
as if butter wouldn't melt in their mouths.
Greece has passed its Draconian property
tax law (correct use of the word just for
once), Portugal adds layer
upon layer of hairshirt, Silvio Berlusconi,
while continuing to promise lower taxes, is
now clearly a dead man walking, and even Spain,
with an election pending, is making strangled
noises about
new taxes. All of them are promising extensive
privatization programmes; but it's just hot
air. This is exactly the worst moment in the
last 50 years to be thinking about selling leaky
assets into a buyers' market, and it won't happen.
The only people who believe - or pretend to
believe - it might happen are the economists
at the IMF who inhabit some kind of alternative
reality which the rest of us don't recognize.
The poor dears need their jobs, of course, so
we musn't be too hard on them, even though their
organization is long past its sell-by date.
No, I have a better idea.
I have never been able to understand
why countries are regarded as being sacred vessels
which no-one can touch: you are not allowed
to buy or sell them, change their borders, impinge
on their sovereignty, attack them or bankrupt
them. This is a very modern idea. Through most
of its history, Europe was a collection of princely
statelets which were swapped about in marriage
contracts as if they were no more than the contents
of a lady's box of jewels; there was the Louisiana
purchase; there was the 19th century African
land-grab (all those straight lines on the map);
there was the Treaty of Vienna; and lots more.
In our own times there has been Alaska (you'd
forgotten that one, I bet), there is Sudan,
there was Macedonia and Bosnia-Hertzegovina, there was Singapore.
It's no argument to say that countries
are sacred because of the rights of their citizens:
by and large we don't apply those principles
to corporate takeovers and we're not applying
them now in the case of Greece, where the entire
tragedy is being played out between the EU,
the ECB, the IMF, the banks, and the unlucky
Greek politicians who found themselves holding
the parcel when the music stopped. The Greek
citizenry is reduced to the role of a Greek
chorus: powerless to affect the outcome.
My proposal is to put Greece on
the market; more generally, in fact, to put
all countries on the market. Of course, some
countries will be too big to be bought, just
as some companies are too big to be bought (many
companies are bigger than most states). The
citizens of countries would be equivalent to
shareholders in a merger: they would vote on
any proposed deal and would pocket whatever
inducements were offered by the buying country
(or company), which would assume administrative
and economic control of the target country.
There are some immediately obvious
pairings: China would surely bid for Portugal,
given the growing importance of Macao and Portugal's
prime position as an EU member state. Brazil
might put up a fight, but China has much more
money and would probably win. Mrs Merkel would
surely approve. Then Greece? Very strong shipping
and tourist sectors might appeal to Singapore;
the US would be interested, but hasn't got the
money (!) Canada has a thriving Greek diaspora
and would surely be interested in a Mediterranean
outpost. If you were a Greek taxi-driver, would
you rather be administered by your existing,
ahem, government, the super-efficient Singaporeans
or the polyglot Canadians? Either would be an
improvement, no? Sovcomflot (the Russian maritime
behemoth) has also probably got the money to
buy Greece in its present condition, but that
might be a step too far for the EU, not that
Brussels should be given any say in the matter.
Me, I will patent a new version
of Monopoly with countries instead of streets,
and wait to clean up.
Ciao, Kitty
You have been reading an entry on the following blog:
Kitty Miv, Editor
kitty@lowtax.net
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