It’s time to dig into the brimming mailbag. Today’s instalment features how the euro dies and the dollar survives, who wins in Covid versus cancer, and what happened to the zombie saver who died way back in 2014.
Thanks for all your comments and don’t forget to include permission to publish in your emails.
Speaking of which, Nigel Farage has a new video segment in which he answers your questions in person. So be sure to send in your questions here.
Now, here’s what the readers had to say:
Hi Nick,
If Borrowers couldn’t borrow so cheaply, denying market set rate to savers, there would be far fewer irresponsible defaulters!
Savers are already getting zero return on risk and only the possibility of default, how much worse can it be?
I worked closely with Simon Rose of Save our Savers, (End of the World Club at the IEA) and there is a clip attached showing both of us carrying the coffin of the Saver right to the door of the Bank of England where they barred us entering!
Of course you may use my comment.
Regards,
A.
Congratulations on your 2014 stunt and the Save Our Savers campaign. Perhaps, after the pandemic is over, you can try zombies? They’re more threatening.
The fact that loose monetary policy is a redistribution of wealth from savers to borrowers is easily forgotten.
In coming years, I think we’ll hear a lot about how the Bank of England is independent and the government can’t do anything about low rates.
Convenient, that, isn’t it?
J.W. points out that measuring trade-offs from government policy is incredibly difficult, but in a very different context:
Nick
I am extremely impressed by your erudition on many subjects, especially economics.
However there is one medical line of reasoning which I think you and many others are getting wrong.
The view you put forward recently is, in essence, our focus on Covid means many others are suffering and dying from cancer, diabetes etc. You suggest we should focus less on Covid so we can deal with the other critical and chronic ailments.
The trouble is if we accept more Covid cases by doing this, the increase in Covid admissions will cause even more cancellations of cancer appointments …. simply because a gasping person will be seen before a cancer patient as their danger is medium / long term unlike Covid which is immediate.
As I say, easing up on Covid restrictions will actually make the treatments for cancer etc even more delayed.
Regards
J.W.
You’re presuming that Covid restrictions work. As far as I have seen, this is not true. They primarily prolong the pandemic. And, given time is an issue in delaying treatments, this makes the issue worse.
However, going to the hospital does seem to increase your risk of getting Covid, so perhaps you are right in the end.
This reader passionately points out that there are important things going on other than the pandemic and the vaccination drama:
I get really cross when I read things like this.
People have been encouraged to focus on just one aspect of something that has much further implications than the taking of a vaccination that might cause some side effects further down the line.
Is the cure worse than the disease?
How do you even start to measure that? How about these considerations:
How many people have died for non-Covid reasons but whose treatments have been delayed?
Could the UK economy survive another total lockdown?
How much has the last lockdown been responsible for highlighting other problems in our society as a whole? What are they and what are we doing about them?
What is better – protect individual people or protect the economy?
Does the UK government even control our Country any more and if not who does?
I could go on.
These are all much much more serious problems than talking about the people who are getting upset about having a vaccine put in their arms, which is what most of the MSM seems to be focusing on atm.
If the barometer of progress is the number of people dying from or in hospital with Covid which logically it should be, then it’s time that everybody recognised and focused on that measurement because if they don’t then some of these other even more important points will soon become tomorrow’s news and a hell of a lot of people are going to feel the pain an awful lot more then that they are now.
The game of “politician picks an expert” is becoming troubling in all sorts of places, not just the pandemic. The good news is, there are enough experts around to find the opposite view each time.
Here’s a question I get a lot, in response to my article on inflation in the eurozone diverging.
Nick,
I enjoy your tub thumping sermons on the death of the euro, but doesn’t the UK suffer the same problems as the Eurozone, albeit on a smaller scale.
Doesn’t Blackpool need a much lower interest rate than Sevenoaks?
Even within London, Tower Hamlets and Richmond would benefit from vastly different interest rates.
And to look at the USA (nearer to the EU in size) Maryland has double the median income of West Virginia, yet has the same federally imposed interest rates.
I look forward to your comments on why the EU is different?
*Cheers*
J.&J. C.
The same applies to the United States too, of course.
Although you’re thinking along the right lines, there’s a small list of key distinctions that apply within a nation which do not apply in the euro area, or not as much.
Migration is much easier because of language and culture within the UK and United States, which has an important effect on rebalancing the effects of sharing a currency. Such migration is supposedly legally possible within the euro area, but in practice much more difficult than within nations.
The same goes for companies moving about within a nation versus within the euro area. It’s much easier to do so within the UK or United States than it is within the euro area.
Nations make transfer payments which support those parts of the nation which are struggling, and the parts which are prosperous pay disproportionate amounts of tax to fund this.
How do you think Germans feel about German taxes paying Greek pensions?
In order to manage the money supply within the various nations, the euro area requires something called Target2, while the United States and UK don’t need to manage things that way.
And the regulatory system is much more homogeneous inside the UK and United States, while distinctions inside the euro area continue. This is why the euro area is trying to impose a banking union, for example – to get rid of the distinctions.
I’ll accept that it’s not a clear cut distinction between the euro area on the one hand and the United States and UK on the other. But the differences do matter. If the euro area were to integrate into a United States of Europe, well, then it wouldn’t be a common currency anymore. It would be a nation. The attempt to impose this is what will cause the EU to break apart. And the euro with it.
Nick Hubble
Editor, Fortune & Freedom
PS If you think all that is controversial, edgy or far sighted, you ain’t seen nothing yet…
If you haven’t seen it already, you need to watch this today.
Nigel Farage sits down with global forecaster David Murrin to talk about WW3, a potential new golden age for Britain and the possibility of a big (and rapid) stock market collapse. If that doesn’t get you interested, you’re in the wrong place!
Watch now: What if Brexit is only the beginning?
You can find out more about David’s own work and big ideas over at davidmurrin.co.uk
