Perhaps not always, but most certainly in the current phase of history. The Economist appears to have concocted (unless it is real!) a wonderful image of The Frau:
Now, I dare say it is a bit self serving in that she is depicted knocking back the whisky rather than beer or schnaps, but still.
A friend pointed out another flaw to this image. Surely, she said, The Frau is the one who wrote the book and therefore doesn’t need to be reading it! Well, I for one, have no argument against that.
All I can say is hooray for British humour! Humour is, after all, the only thing we have lest to fight this surreal idiocy we are living through.
Anyway, for all the sympathy we might have for The Frau and her precarious position. She is, we are told, trying to get it right and is distressed at being depicted as a nazi in the countries she is trying so hard to save.
Well that could be one indication for her, were she bright enough to be able to decipher such a message, that she may not be going about it in the best of ways. We are also told in these articles (which are well worth a read) that she expected the structural reforms and austerity she has been imposing (with a particular vengeance in Greece) would have led to growth.
Now, why does not that fact that her policies have led to the very reverse not make her stop and think for a while? (And, to be fair, this goes for the whole incompetent bunch of them in the EU Commission, the IMF and of course the German establishment).
And here is where we have idiocy’s crowning achievement. In his excellent little book, (little in page size, otherwise very great) “End This Depression Now”, Paul Krugman describes the right wing pundits who were all gung ho for deregulation, free market economics and all the rest of that dogma which has directly resulted in the horrendous collapse of the global economy.
He tells us these “Very Serious People” as he dubs them, insist, even now, that all and any policies (particularly Keynesian ones) not in line with their own dogma would be catastrophic. Why is that? can’t they just see the evidence? Surely it is so obvious that it doesn’t even need to be debated, that the economy is collapsing because of their dogmatic adherence to a policy that simply failed horribly?
Well, the answer to that is, that if they were to accept this fact it would be tantamount to admitting they have been very wrong for a very wrong time. And they cannot do that.
Neither can the Frau, it would seem.
Bye bye Euro?