| economics
29.03.2004 |
voting with the feet as, increasingly, borders
open
Iindividual power is steadily increasing as governments become forced
to compete for productive citizens.
net
emigration of british citizens (PDF)
1997 59,800
1998 22,700
1999 22,800
2000 57,000
2001 53,000
2002 91,000
“House
prices have risen considerably in all areas of the States, fuelled
by record-low interest rates on mortgages. Despite these increases,
British buyers are still shocked at how much their equity buys. Ryan
says: 'A client of mine just sold his two-bedroom flat in Enfield, north
London, and purchased a three-bedroom, two-bathroom detached home in
Minneapolis with a chunk of money left over.”
Niall Ferguson on the European Union:
the
end of the process of European integration1
“My estimation [.....] is that the train is still running, but
there ain't no gravy anymore. And as that reality gradually dawns, the
process of European integration, which I believe has depended from its
very inception on German gravy, is bound to come to a halt. Who, after
all--who is going to pay for those, and I quote, "maximum enlargement-related
commitments," to the 10 new member states which have been capped
at 40 billion euros? The general assumption appears still to be that
the German taxpayer will pay that money. I see no reason whatsoever
why that should be the case. Indeed, the very smallness of the sum that
has been agreed illustrates the way the German purse-strings are tightening.
“[ ...] I didn't come here this evening to make a purely economic
argument. What I've said I think is in fact a sufficient argument to
explain the end of the process of European integration as we have known
it up until this point. But I have one last argument to make that is
not, in the end, an economic argument at all. ”
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