Imagine living under one of the 19 nations in Europe who share the same currency and have little to no autonomy over their own monetary policies. Then, making matters worse, the latest inflation reading comes in at 8.6%, forcing the European Central Bank (ECB) to invoke a rate increase!
In the words of one expert on CNBC:
For the first time since 2011, the Bank has hiked interest rates and did so with a bang.
The following is a plea to Germany—the war is over and has been for three-quarters of a century. It’s time to stop prostrating yourself for the supposed “good” of Europe. It’s time to take complete control of your domestic and foreign policy, without interference from haughty, busybody world elites, and do what is best for yourself. You will be pleasantly surprised that what is good for yourself is also good for your neighbors and the world.
Here are four failed policies that must be ended:
In order to gain insight into the future state of the economy, some analysts utilize consumer and business surveys. Randomly selected consumers and businesspersons are asked to provide their views about where the economy is heading.
If a survey shows that, most of those surveyed express optimism it is regarded as good news for the economy. Conversely, if the majority of those surveyed are pessimistic it is taken as a bad omen for future economic activity.
With Sri Lanka’s short-lived green revolution of 2021 having quickly devolved into a real revolution just one year later, complete with the ouster of former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s incompetent and authoritarian government this past week, now is a good time to hammer home not only why the effort failed, but why so-called ESG (environmental, social, and governance) policies and the green energy movement more generally are hopeless and destructive wastes of time.
The ECB’s announcement on Thursday July 21 of a “new instrument” for tackling “fragmentation risk” is ominous for the future of the euro. The idea is to pre-empt the emergence of serious break-up risk for the euro-zone as the policy interest rate continues to move higher in coming quarters towards “neutral.”
The Right: The Hundred-Year War for American Conservatism
By Matthew Continetti
Basic Books, 2022
503 pp.
