Year: 2010

The enormous Swiss currency reserves are a direct result of the euro crisis as the SNB is fighting an uphill battle to stabilise the Swiss Franc against the weakening euro. Switzerland’s central bank soaks up euros and sells off francs on a massive scale.

As long as the Germans pretend that the current crisis was caused by speculation and not by inherent flaws of the European project, this crisis will not pass. They can ban short selling, regulate credit default swaps or outlaw hedge funds all they like, but this will not solve the competitiveness problems of Club Med countries.

The Red Tape Trading Scheme would make it possible to reduce administrative burdens without a top-down strategy. Instead, it would give incentives to bureaucrats to spot opportunities to still achieve the same goals of regulations but with less bureaucracy.

For many years now, trading schemes have been used as mechanisms to reduce environmental pollution. The principal idea behind such schemes is that they allow emissions to be cut where it is least costly. A similar idea could be applied in the area of better regulation.

WHAT do carbon emissions and red tape have in common? They are both unwanted by-products. Carbon emissions result from the use of energy, whereas red tape is caused by regulation. Since both of them are a kind of pollution, there is no reason we should treat them differently.

Where there is huge complexity, there should also be the greatest desire to cut it back. So perhaps it’s only natural that the most interesting way of reducing the costs of regulation originated right in the heart of Europe, in the Netherlands.

In England bilden mitten in der Krise zwei junge, enthusiastische Politiker eine Regierung der Zuversicht. Das ist auch nötig, ist den Briten das Regieren mit Koalitionen nach jahrzehntelanger Abstinenz doch geradezu wesensfremd.

By putting European idealism ahead of economic concerns, Europe’s leaders have given speculators ample opportunity to exploit the weaknesses of the flawed monetary construction that is the euro.