- (December 2005)
The decline and fall of European common sense.
The European media and the anti-American front have made a big deal of
"secret" CIA flights transporting suspects of terrorism. Such flights
landed in several western European countries and some suspects were held in
prisons located in several Eastern European countries.
The worst part is probably the fact that the CIA "kidnapped" suspects
in several European countries, instead of using the local police to arrest
them.
Europeans also object to the USA returning suspects to their home countries,
because in their home countries they could be tortured. (It is not clear what
the alternative is: if the USA is not supposed to hold them, and it is not
supposed to return them to their home country, is the USA supposed to simply
set them free?)
Somehow, this has become the new big anti-American scandal.
First things first: European countries have been using the same methods
whenever they deemed it important for their security.
Before Osama, the most famous international terrorist was Carlos
the Jackal. He was eventually kidnapped by French agents in Sudan
in 1994, secretely transported to France, secretely interrogated
and finally jailed after a secret trial. We have never heard
of him again.
No European country ever complained about France's behavior in the Carlos
affair. There were no anti-French marches, and nobody requested an apology
for the president of France.
The USA is accused of having done the exact same thing that France did in
the Carlos case. Somehow we are told that this is no longer ok. Furthermore,
it is now really bad. Furthermore, it is an outrage.
If torture was employed to interrogate those suspects, the public opinion of
the USA will be the first one to object to the method. But so far the issue
is only about "kidnapping" terrorists and deporting them to another country.
This might be an interesting topic for specialists in international law,
but one wonders if it deserves the amount of time that European media are
devoting to it.
These politicians seem to be arguing on how to protect the rights of
an aspiring terrorist to carry out his well-planned terrorist attack,
and prevent the evil CIA from disrupting such an attack,
If they want to criticize the USA, can't they find better reasons?
The Bush administration has failed grotesquely in a number of ways to
fight terrorism (e.g., Osama is still free, not to mention the mess in
Iraq), but this secret CIA flights hardly qualify as the top priority to
discuss with the USA.
The USA may have lost some of its respect for human rights, but Europoliticians
seem to have lost even the last grain of salt.
TM, ®, Copyright © 2005 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved.
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- (November 2005)
Decline and fall of the eurozone democracies.
What a difference democratic traditions make.
Almost simultaneously, three major European countries were called to
make decisions related to their democratic institutions.
France was under pressure from suburban riots.
Britain had just been struck by two terrorist attacks.
Italy was frustrated by the inefficiency of its political system.
France introduced legislation worthy of a police state
(See this article).
Italy changed the constitution to grant more power to its prime minister, as
if controlling all the main tv stations of the country weren't enough power
(See this article).
In the meantime, the British parliament rejected anti-democratic legislation
proposed by Tony Blair (See this article).
The contrast between the eurozone and Britain is striking.
The contrast between the eurozone and the developing world is even more striking:
eurozone countries are restricting individual freedom at a time when democratic
progress is under way just about everywhere.
TM, ®, Copyright © 2005 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved.
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- (November 2005)
The eurozone disease
It actually started when an Italian minister called for Italy to leave the
eurozone and return to the glorious lira, the most devalued and ridiculed currency in the West.
(See Italy is not fit for the eurozone).
That minister simply translated into narrow-minded politics the disillusionment
that millions of Europeans felt for the euro. Hailed as the panacea for many
European ills, it turned out to coincide (whether by accident or not) with
a decline in purchasing power by the vast majority of Europeans. Basically,
the euro was introduced when the European economies were weak, and many ordinary
Europeans now think that the weakness was caused by the euro.
In the case of Italy and many other exporting countries, there is also concern
that the strong euro is not an asset (something to be proud of) but a curse,
as it makes European goods more expensive and thus hurts the profits on
exported goods, which are in turn vital to these countries.
next came the "no" to the French and Dutch referendums on the European
constitution. They were rather different kinds of "no"
(see Lessons learned and not learned from the referendums), but certainly they did not bode well for the future
of the European Union, that until the previous day had been hailed by
the French president as one of the few certainties of the modern world.
Suddenly, the European Union appeared all but certain.
Then came a messy German election, that finally disposed of a failed chancellor
(Schroeder) but failed in turn to show a future for Germany: the new bickering
"grand coalition" is hardly what stagnating Europe needs.
(See Gerhard Schroeder, loser).
Then came the French riots. A country convinced that it had the best social
system in the world found out (the hard way) that it had one of the worst.
It turns out that immigrants and especially their children do not like
charity from the government. They would rather get jobs, houses and shops.
(See Goodbye, French Republic).
Are these isolated events or the symptoms of a spreading disease?
It is probably a disease, incubated for a long time and finally released,
although it does not have a name yet. We know that it brings instability
to every country of the eurozone, and that each country lives in denial of it.
Who will be next? Spain has not been in the news since Spanish voters
bent to the requests of Islamic terrorists and elected socialist
Jose-Luis-Rodriguez Zapatero prime minister. Spain withdrew the troops
from Iraq and started undoing some of the confrontational policies of
the previous prime minister, Jose-Maria Aznar. But that immediately raises
an alarm flag: what France, Germany and Italy have in common is a very
fragile government. Zapatero (who owns his election to Islamic terrorists)
seems to be doing something even worse: by
accepting the requests of Basques and Catalunians (not to mention Islamic
terrorists), he may have initiated a process of disintegration of Spain,
albeit a peaceful process. If Catalunia will get the autonomy that it has
demanded, one wonders why other regions shouldn't get the same degree of
autonomy. On the other hand, Spain is still a poor country, with a high
unemployment rate, and these internal issues are useful to divert people's
attention from the economic issues. There is a chance, though, that the
two will converge, and that the country collapses.
Last but not least, Islam is beginning to creep back into Spain: the first
mosque in 500 years opened in 2003. Eight months later, Muslims blew up
200 Spaniards in the Madrid railway station, thus proving how pointless it was
to be understanding and generous to the national Muslim community.
It is hard to believe that the future will bring peace rather than more
confrontation between Christians and Muslims. Again, this will only weaken
an already weak government.
If one replays the story of the last few years, one can't help noticing that
it all started with the Iraqi issue. When France and Germany (full of
Euronationalism and determined to create an anti-American block) opposed
the USA's plan to remove Saddam Hussein, they caused the first major split in
the history of the European
Union, with Eastern-European countries, Britain, Italy, Holland,
Spain and Denmark siding with the USA. It was Chirac's attempt to paint the
European Union as an alternative leader of the West that started the period
of great instability (that is now, ironically, causing the collapse of the
very Chirac regime that started it).
One lesson learned: there is great stability in the shadow of the superpower,
there is little stability away from it.
TM, ®, Copyright © 2005 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved.
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- (October 2005)
Anti-americanism in Europe.
As one travels around the world, one can't help noticing the strongest
strains of anti-americanism are to be found in Western Europe, of all places.
Western Europe is the place where any lie about the USA propagates very
quickly.
Western Europe is the place where any conspiracy theory about the USA becomes
a best-seller.
Western Europe is the place where any critic of the USA president becomes
a tv star.
of course, part of it is mere envy: Europe used to rule the world, but it
matters less and less.
Part of it is euronationalism: the founders of the European Union are teaching
younger generations to love Europe, and, inevitably, they have to paint it
as a better alternative to the USA.
Anti-americanism has been around in Europe since the very beginning of the
Cold War. Originally it was fueled by Soviet propaganda (which many Europeans
believed and replicated). After the fall of the Soviet Union something has
changed in its dynamics, and in its audience.
Now it is fueled by media that found out a basic
truth: anti-americanism sells. Thus people want anti-american books and
tv shows, and are given anti-american books and tv shows that increase their
demand for them, in a virtually endless loop of ever increasing anti-americanism.
Bottom line: anti-americanism is just a successful product.
Its audience is not limited to the old communists (although they make up
the core of the anti-american media editors). Its audience now encompasses
even the people (e.g., the Catholic Church) that used to rally around the
USA flag.
It all started with the fall of communism. As one communist country after the
other denounced communism as a fraud, communism lost credibility in the West
too. Communist parties such as the Italian and French communist parties, that
used to get more than 30% of the votes, virtually disappeared overnight.
Since then, Western Europe has been moving mostly to the right. Right-wing
parties have entered into governing coalitions after winning record percentages
of votes. Center-right coalitions have ruled for many years in France (11) and
Italy (5). Even the leftist parties of today are more to the right than some
of the centrist parties of the 1960s (see Tony Blair). No mainstream
politician opposes capitalism anymore. Communists are pathetic remnants of
a heroic world that doesn't exist anymore. They are mostly old and nostalgic.
Western Europe has moved steadily to the right, whether its voters like to
admit it or not.
However, at the same time, the fall of communism also freed Western Europe
from its dependency on the USA. The USA was indispensable to protect Western
Europe from the Soviet Union. Once the Soviet Union dissolved, the USA was
not needed anymore. Germany is a case in point: it used to be the most
pro-American country in Europe, with approval ratings of 80% of the USA's
anti-communist policy, but the moment the Berlin wall fell the polls changed
dramatically, and now less than 20% of Germans approve of the USA. The word
"american" is an insult, used when a German wants to describe the urban decay
of the ghettos, or high-school shootings or extreme poverty.
Basically, Western Europe ended up adopting the view of the USA that had
been traditionally be promoted by the Left.
The Left (as it was then) lost all the elections, but it has won as far
as the image of the USA is concerned.
One reason perhaps is that the Right, having won all the elections, is more
than happy to give the Left a consolation prize: the USA. After all, nobody
needs to prove that the USA was right and the Soviet Union was wrong, because
the Soviet Union itself admitted it. Thus who needs the USA anymore?
Let the Left destroy its reputation.
Each international event simply increases this phenomenon, because the media
(often run by former communists) specialize in always finding a fault in what
the USA does. Thus whatever the USA does the articles on mainstream magazines
will be, on average, critical. Thus whatever the USA does the Western European
public opinion will become more and more anti-american.
One wonders if, at some point, the two trends won't converge into a
new equilibrium. If Western Europe keeps moving to the right and keeps becoming
more and more anti-american, shouldn't the Left move in the opposite direction,
i.e. towards the USA?
After all, the new Left is not about Marx and Lenin: it is about democracy,
human rights, the environment, consumer rights, etc. Isn't the USA the country
that pioneered all of these? (not necessarily the current government, but
the country as a whole in history). If the Left in Western Europe makes the
final step towards ratipnality (abandon social programs that create
unemployment and focus on economic programs that create jobs), it will have
adopted the USA model, while the demagogy of the Right may push it farther
and farther away from the USA (see, for example, how anti-american the Catholic
Church has become).
TM, ®, Copyright © 2005 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved.
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- (June 2005)
Eurospeech.
Speech is useful to decipher the evils of Europe.
French President Jacques Chirac, a notoriously pathetic and arrogant politician,
said that Britain's behaviour was "pathetic" and accused Britain and
Holland of "arrogance".
German chancellor Schroeder accused Britain and Holland of "totally unacceptable attitude".
Both statements are interesting, coming from the leaders of two countries
in deep crises (Germany just posted the worst unemployment data since the
1930s, and France just posted the worst data of the last five years, besides
killing the European constitution).
Both Chirac and Schroeder (who represent the old way of thinking in Europe,
as Rumsfeld correctly stated) still fail to understand why they have caused
so much damage to their own countries and to the European Union.
What is truly unacceptable is the current policies of France and Germany.
Asked on tv why Britain has half the unemployment of France and twice his
growth rate, Chirac simply changed subject. Had he tried to answer the question,
he would have realized who is "pathetic" and "arrogant".
What is pathetic and arrogant is the behavior of the president of a country
that is in deep crisis, but goes out and asks other countries (countries that
are doing quite well, like Britain) to do what France did (what caused the
crisis in the first place).
What is unacceptable (and probably unacceptable also to German voters) is the
current state of the German economy.
Europe will not solve its problems for as long as Chirac and Schroeder think
of themselves as the "engine" of Europe. They are the plague of Europe.
No European Union is possible for as long as Chirac and Schroeder are in power.
TM, ®, Copyright © 2005 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved.
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- (June 2005)
Lessons learned and not learned from the referendums
- As it is often the case in continental Europe, the vast majority of the people who voted against the European constitution... never read it. This is a typical attitude that goes back decades. Continental Europeans can be very opinionated about things that they know only superficially, or only through word of mouth. Thus the reason that French and Dutch voters voted against the Constitution has little to do with what is in the constitution.
- It was widely reported that the French electorate voted against the constitution out of fear that the Anglosaxon model (liberal capitalism) is about to supplant the good old French social model. Suit yourself. France is stagnating, with skyrocketing unemployment, while Britain has vibrant economic growth and has much lower unemployment. History shall eventually decide. If this trend continues, France will become so poor compared with Britain that Britain will simply come to dominate it. (Already, French are emigrating to Britain in record numbers). The French social model "is" the problem. This is the fundamental contradiction of countries like France: every politician talks about "change" but in the vaguest terms, because they know that the "change" that is needed (structural reforms of labour laws and of the welfare system) is exactly the opposite of what people demand (job security, free health care, pensions, etc). In southern Europe, people still think that government, not companies, create jobs. People demand more of the same (government subsidies and government jobs), while politicians know that the state is going bankrupt and business is moving elsewhere precisely for that reason. In the short term, the French government is likely to simply implement some quick fixes to carry on till the next election. As governments throughout southern Europe have been doing for decades. This will only make the problem worse, create more national anger and more resentment against the EU. It is a vicious loop that only the people can break. But the people probably won't accept to break it until something truly catastrophic happens.
- A related, and certainly not least, motive for voting against the European constitution was and is the vast unpopularity of national governments. Right now the French would vote against anything that Chirac is in favor of (Chirac's approval rating has plummeted to 24%, which makes even Bush look popular). While these politicians are certainly inept (and sometimes corrupt), the people have not learned and have not been taught that they, the people, are the ones defending the old system. Again, it is the people, not Chirac or Schroeder, who want to retain the social system that has largely failed, crippled the economies, created unemployment and made continental Europe less and less competitive on the global market. Politicians are faced with the contradiction of knowing that they can become popular again only if they fix the economic problems but those problems can be fixed only through highly unpopular reforms. There seems no way out of this conundrum, just like there was no way out of it in Argentina.
- Another reason for the vote against the European constitution was the fear in "rich" countries that only "poor" countries benefit from integration. The dichotomy between rich and poor countries is often misrepresented, particularly in the rich countries. The truth is that the poor countries have vibrant economies. Their unemployment rate is rapidly decreasing and their GDP is rapidly growing. It was already this way before they joined the European Union. By contrast, the rich countries are pretty much on the verge of bankruptcy. Rich countries such as France, Germany and Italy have huge deficits and are rapidly approaching the point of Argentinian-style state meltdown. It is the poor countries that should wonder whether they truly benefit from the association with countries that are, de facto, sinking.
- The one issue on which the people were right is that the enlargement of the European free trade zone (that is what the "European Union" is) has given employers a much broader choice of where to hire, and many employers are deciding that the "rich" countries are not the right place. Thus the European Union is viewed by the French (and probably the Germans too) as one of the main causes for unemployment. It results in a transfer of jobs from rich countries to poor countries. While this is mostly true, the rich countries fail to identify the real cause. The reason that companies prefer poor countries to rich countries is that rich countries are a nightmare. Dumping the European constitution may actually increase (not decrease) the motivation for these companies to move elsewhere. Who wants to do business in France anymore, knowing that the French electorate wants to kill (not speed up) the long overdue reforms that would boost business? The problem is not that poor countries compete unfairly with rich countries: the problem is that businesses do not want to reside in the rich countries because rich countries are hostile to business. That simple. The solution is not to close the borders with poor countries (i.e., to keep businesses prisoners within the borders of rich countries) but to change the system. The French have to make up their minds: if they want companies to hire French employees, they have to make it appealing for companies to hire French employees. That simple.
- In a sense there is a subtle alliance between the corporations of "rich" countries (that want an expansion because it allows them to be more competitive by relocating operations where it makes more sense) and the people of "poor" countries (who want to import business and to export workers). The former are strongly in favor of European enlargement and integration because it is simply a form of globalization. The latter like the European Union because it brings new jobs to their countries and it helps their emigrants find jobs elsewhere. Thus Spain and Italy and all eastern European countries are strongly in favor of further integration. The losers are the people of the "rich" countries, who do not intend to emigrate to other countries and who do need jobs to remain in their countries.
- The Europoliticians deserve all the distrust they get from the people. Most of them reacted to the debacle of the referendums by deciding to go ahead as if the people had voted "yes". The current president (the prime minister of Luxembourg) has told France and Holland that they should hold the referendum again, so that people can cast the "right" vote. Does he really think that this helps convince the skeptics? This attitude by the Europoliticians is even more upsetting because obviously they haven't realized the fundamental problem: the people who wrote the "constitution" had not been elected. They had been appointed. Even the very young and imperfect democracy of Iraq has had elections to elect the representatives who will draft the constitution. The European Union appointed a bunch of bureaucrats to write the constitution, instead of asking the people to select their representatives. It then asked the people to approve a constitution that the people had no power to decide. No wonder that the people did not like it.
- There is a "democratic gap" that needs to be addressed by the European Union: most decisions about political and economic integration are made by Eurobureaucrats who do not consult the electorate. When they do (after the fact), they usually only ask for people to validate "obvious" choices. Clearly, those choices are not obvious at all.
- Economic and political integration was supposed to lead to harmonious life withing the European Union. Recent events lead to the opposite conclusion: the more integrated European countries become, the more friction is introduced among them. The tighter the union, the less harmonious its life. Any enlargement makes it harder to achieve real union. Even worse: the easiest way for a demagogue to justify his failures is to blame the European Union for them. (Chirac's first reaction to outcome of the referendum was to demand that Britain pays higher contributions to the European Union, despite knowing that, de facto, Britain is already paying for the many subsidies that French agriculture receives: 42% of the European budget is spent on subsidies to farmers, about 5% of Europe's population and one fifth of which are French).
- Europeans of the eurozone countries got to believe the official propaganda about the euro, a currency widely described as destined to take over the dollar and rule the world. Now the euro reveals all its fragility: one bad referendum, and it is suddenly and painfully clear that the euro is a national currency without a nation. Hardly the definition of a strong and reliable currency. It will take a long long time before the euro can rival the dollar (or, for that matter, the British pound). For the time being, it will be too busy to merely survive.
- Over the last few years, members of the European Union that did not adopt the euro (Britain, Denmark, Sweden) have generally been doing better (in terms of GDP growth and employment) than countries within the eurozone (European countries that have not joined the EU, such as Norway and Switzerland, have been doing even better). Political turmooil associated with the European Union has been greater inside the eurozone than outside it. It might prove a sign that economic integration has to follow (not precede) political integration. National politicians are preoccupied with being reelected by national electorates, not by the European electorate.
- It would be a mistake to think that the European Union is a homogeneous population. For example, France is afraid of integration because it leads to a more liberal model, but Holland is afraid of integration for the opposite reason, because it would give more power to the large bureaucratic countries (such as France) to destroy the liberal model and create unemployment also elsewhere. The Dutch are afraid of being sucked into the problems of the large eurozone countries. It is likely that the French voted "no" to any change to the system that is causing them their problems, whereas the Dutch voted "no" to surrender power to countries like France that would export their problems to the rest of the Union. In other words, the French voted "no" in order to keep their system, and the Dutch voted"no" to make sure that they are not forced to adopt the French system. Many French voters voted against the structural reforms that economists think are indispensable for creating jobs and restarting the stagnating economies of the eurozone: French voters want jobs, but don't want the structural reforms that would create those jobs. This may be true in all of the southern countries. It is not necessarily true in Holland (or Germany, and certainly not true in Britain), countries where voters are traditionally more "sophisticated", willing to understand the rationale rather than simply demanding their rights. The euro's biggest drawback is that it forces the entire eurozone to behave like one brain when in fact there are several different brains. French voters may be inflexible on issues that find German voters very flexible. What if Germans vote to go head with painful structural reforms and French don't? Having a common currency forces them to adopt the same policy, but this might just go against the characters of these nations.
- Britain always tried to be as little relevant as possible in Europe, and France welcomed this low-profile attitude. French voters just made Britain a lot more relevant. French voters also helped Britain greatly increase its influence over the rest of continental Europe. The loose association that now looks like the most likely compromise is precisely what Britain had always advocated. Britain welcomes enlargements precisely because they weaken the central power of the European Union. Suddenly, Britain looks like the pragmatic oracle that can lead Europe towards a realistic integration, as opposed to France that looks incapable to deliver the grand visions it promised. (Its own citizens don't seem to like it).
- The new democracies of Eastern Europe need stable and reliable partners. The "rich" eurozone countries are, clearly, not such a thing. The USA clearly is. After a brief spell in which it looked like the European Union could represent a political bedrock, Eastern Europeans are waking up to the inevitable: the USA was and still is the only certainty. NATO is stable and reliable, the European Union is not. (Significantly, Norway is a member of NATO but not of the EU). USA influence is likely to escalate rapidly in Eastern Europe.
- The importance of the European Union for the USA foreign policy must not be underestimated. The USA has been using the European Union as the most effective mean to consolidate its victory over the Soviet Union. The USA has a vested interest in the continuing eastward expansion of the European Union. The USA is the main sponsor of Turkey, the Balkans, and now Ukraine becoming members of the EU. It is the cheapest and best way to make sure that the Balkans are stabilized, that Turkey becomes a western and not middle-eastern power, that Ukraine is absorbed within the West. The USA has nothing to gain from a weaker or stalling EU, because it simply means more responsibility for the USA in eastern Europe.
- Chirac appointed Dominique de Villepin as new prime minister of France. Villepin has long been advocating a core union (a sort of federation) with Germany, since the two countries share the same view of a social/capitalist system. This idea might now get a new boost by the quarrel with Britain and the electorate's opposition to an enlarged Europe. The French electorate might like a union with Germany only much better than a 25-country union. But Villepin might be miscalculating Germany's desire for becoming one nation with the French. While little will change if Chirac loses the election and the Left (or another conservative alliance) comes to rule France, a lot will change if Schroeder loses the election and Angela Merkel becomes the new chancellor: it is unlikely that Merkel will accept to sink with France, it is likely that Germany will rediscover its passion for discipline and growth and adopt the very Anglosaxon model that France is so scared of.
- A simple reason for voter's apathy is that the European constitution (and the debate surrounding it) failed to address the strategic vulnerabilities of Europe in the 21st centuries: globalization (that is making Europe less and less relevant); Middle-eastern rearmament (Israel and Iran going nuclear, escalating military budgets by some Arab countries); unreliable supplies of energy (Russia and Iran); the political instability of neighboring countries (Russia and the Arabs); the demographic crisis (the population of many western countries is declining while immigration is booming). Globalization in particular is shrinking the political and economic power of Europe, as outsourced jobs and economic booms make Asia (not Europe) the alternative to the USA. While the USA is riding the new scenario by continuously renovating its economy and its workforce, Europe appears incapable of coping with the new world. Nothing is being done to address these vulnerabilities before they become catastrophes.
- (May 2005)
The French referendum on the European constitution.
When the European Union decided to adopt a new constitution that would
streamline the decision process, a few countries opted to hold a refendum
on it (others simply approved it without letting the people vote on it).
The big sceptic has always been Britain. The big "engine" of integration has
always been France. Both decided to grant a referendum, but
Blair and Chirac probably felt that they were in opposite situations.
Instead, it turns out that the French electorate is as divided as the British
one. France's referendum has given a chance to the opposition to speak up.
In most European countries, the opposition to integration is derided and
neglected. The media are massively in favor of integration. So are intellectuals
and businessmen (probably the only on which they agree). And so are all the
mainstream parties. France probably did not expect that the referendum would
be seized as a golden opportunity by the opposition to generate the kind of
debate that has always been missing (the French media have a tradition for
presenting a uniform view of an issue, see for example the case of Iraq).
For the first time since France joined Italy and Germany to create the
foundations of the European Union in 1957, the polls show a majority of French
voters opposed to integration.
In favor of the European constitution are all the center-left and center-right
parties.
Opposed are fascists and communists, and a ragtag army of dissenters and populists and anti-globalists.
A coalition of business leaders representing la creme de la creme of the French
industry have signed a petition in favor of the constitution, claiming that
a "no" would cause devastating damage to the French economy.
But the front of the "no" includes many people who think that a "yes"
would cause devastating damage to the French economy.
Needless to say, it all depends on your definition of "economy".
If by "economy" you mean "profits of multinational corporations", then the
businessmen are right.
If by "economy" you mean "jobs", then the businessmen are probably wrong:
European integration so far has resulted in exporting jobs from rich countries
to poor countries and in importing unemployment.
If one looks at the macroscopic numbers, it appears that corporations benefit
from European integration, but workers lose jobs. In other words, it depends if
the priority is to protect stockholders or workers.
Since politicians tend to be elected by businessmen who fund their campaigns,
it is not surprising that almost all of them side with the multinational
companies.
Jacques Nikonoff's anti-globalisation collective Attac claims that the European
constitution embodies the vision of a very capitalistic society. That is
precisely the reason why businessmen love it so much.
The "yes" front has to face a formidable enemy: reality. How can the French
economy get any worse than it is now? Is this the best that the French economy
can do?
A second obstacle is the establishment, which is widely despised. In fact,
the biggest liability of the "yes" front is president Jacques Chirac, who is
despised not only by the USA public but by the French public too (although
for different reasons).
It is likely that the "no" vote to the European constitution is
mostly a "no" vote to Chirac, the man who is ultimately responsible for the
terrible state of the French economy (actually, not so terrible if compared
to the state of neighboring Germany and Italy, but that's little consolation
for the millions of unemployed French people).
A third obstacle is Turkey. The French public opinion, already terrorized by
the prospect of French Muslims overtaking French Christians in about 50 years
time, has little patience for another massive Muslim immigration, this time
from Turkey. Unfortunately, the damage has been done (by the Arab immigrants),
and it is now very difficult to explain to the French public that the Turks have
little or no appetite for Islam.
A recent survey by the Pew Center, Desire for Democracy in Muslim World )
found that 73& of Turks are in favor of keeping religion separate from
government,
the exact same percentage as in France, and (lo and behold) much higher than
in the USA (only 55%) and even higher than in Germany, Britain and Italy.
Ironically, and contrary to all stereotypes, if Turkey joined the European
Union, it would become the most secular of all members.
Alas, the European public opinion has been too traumatized by Islam. Even
the most tolerant and liberal European doesn't really want to see an increase
in the number of Muslims hanging out near his office building or his child's
school.
The French establishment is bombarding the French public with a relentless
campaign in favor of the European constitution, a campaign that is clearly
not very democratic. If the government stopped interfering, the "no" front
would probably win by a landslide. Regardless of whether the government
and the businessmen succeed in bending the will of the people, the will of
the people is fairly clear. The repercussions on countries that are
traditionally even less excited about Europe (such as Britain and Scandinavia)
are obvious. Even the countries where the constitution was approved without
a referendum will have to face some form of public discontent.
And analysts in many southern and eastern countries
will show that people voted not in favor of the constitution but in favor
of the right to emigrate to northern and western Europe.
This is another sign that something is fundamentally wrong with the idea
of the European Union.
See Does the European constitution make sense?
TM, ®, Copyright © 2005 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved.
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- (April 2005)
Whatever happened to the Europacifists?
The millions who marched in the streets against the invasion of Iraq
have been largely silent over the last year. On one hand, history has
spoken and we don't really need to spend too much words discussing it:
there were no weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), so the critics were
right on that one; the USA has indeed replaced a tyranny with a democracy,
so the critics were wrong about this one.
Month after month, the Europacifists are withdrawing their "PACE" flags
("pace" means "peace", although to many of us came to signify "leave Saddam
in power for life") and are beginning to change their version of the facts.
If it was difficult two years ago to get a simple answer to the question
"what would you do in Iraq?", it is now almost impossible. Their theories on
Iraq have become so vague that it's like asking them what to do on another
planet. As the USA looks for a military exit strategy from Iraq, the old
Europacifists are looking for a dialectic exit strategy from the subject
(just like their grandfathers eventually had to accept that democracy was
better than Mussolini, just like their fathers eventually had to accept
that the USA was better than the USSR). Since noone likes to say "I was wrong",
they are simply changing the subject (e.g., to "global warming").
The very fact that Condy Rice is way more popular in Europe than any European
politician, becoming almost a star during her European trip, is simply a way
to admit that maybe (just maybe) the USA was right without
actually giving Bush any credit for it.
When even the spokesman of Hezbollah grugdingly admits that the USA invasion
of Iraq has greatly improved the situation for the Iraqi people, and when
the leaders of Lebanon admit that the Syrian occupation of their country ended
because of the USA invasion of Iraq, the Europacifists can't quite continue
to deny the obvious.
Many of the "dogmas" of the Bush administration have now become commonplace
opinions shared by the whole world (for example, that the United Nations
Organization needs to be reformed).
Whether they like to admit it or not, these are the facts (no longer opinions):
- There were no weapons of mass destruction. The good news is that the USA and Britain did not try to cheat: they could have easily planted the evidence, e.g. some anthrax, and then claimed to have found WMDs. If the USA and Britain invested thousands of inspectors in finding these weapons, and did not planted them, it must mean that Blair and Bush truly believed these weapons existed. They may have been wrong, but they probably did not lie.
- The invasion of Iraq has caused an avalanche of human-rights and democratic progress in the Middle East, probably never witnessed before: from Palestine (first multi-party elections) to Iraq (first multi-party elections) to Lebanon (Syrian pull-out) to Libya (surrender of WMDs), from Egypt (first opposition parties) to Saudi Arabia (first municipal elections). The Middle East has a real chance of becoming one of the most peaceful regions in the world. See the full list at Another democratic revolution
- It has had virtually no effect on the war on terrorism, except maybe to concentrate most Islamic fundamentalists in Iraq. Osama is still free and planning the next attack against the USA. (It is not quite clear who the terrorists in Iraq are: their behavior is eerily reminiscent of Saddam Hussein's regime, so it may well be that these "terrorists" are mostly the old Baathists doing what they were doing before: terrorizing the Iraqi people).
- The United Nations has been proven irrelevant to the point that its own secretary general, Kofi Annan, has called for drastic reforms (precisely what the USA claimed two years ago).
- The USA has emerged as the police officer of the world. All the other "powers" are dwarfed by the USA not only in military and economic terms (they already were before the Iraqi invasion) but now also (mainly) in credibility terms. Even people who dislike the USA now trust what the USA says (which is definitely not true of Russia, European Union, China, widely perceived as talkers but not doers). Nothing happens in the world until the USA says so. The other "powers" can talk and threat and whatever, but countries obey only when the USA tells them so. (Yes, this also includes Iran and North Korea: neither would have done any of the negotiations it did if it weren't for the USA).
- The number of people killed violently in the world has clearly diminished, although critics of the Iraqi invasion claim that "terrorist attacks have increased". It all depends on how one defines "terrorism". The French killed 3,000 Vietnamese in one day when they bombed Haiphong in 1946. Assad killed 20,000 members of the Muslim Brotherhood in one month in Hama. And Saddam killed 30,000 Kurds in one day in 1988. None of these acts is considered "terrorism". But, at today's rate, it will take the Iraqi terrorists about two years to kill as many people as the French killed in one day in Haiphong, and about 20 years to kill as many people as Saddam killed in one day in Hama. If we count dead bodies as dead bodies (without introducing the misleading label "terrorism"), then the number of dead bodies in the Middle East has been reduced since 2001 (no more Taliban terror, no more Hamas terror, no more Saddam terror).
- The responsibility for the mess in Iraq falls squarely on the people who refused to join the USA: Bush went personally to the United Nations to beg the rest of the world to join in the invasion of Iraq. The millions of people who marched in the street with the flags "PACE" are responsible for the thousands of Iraqis that have lost their lives. It was a selfish and irresponsible act to let the USA, Britain and Australia go alone.
- The Bush administration has been proven disastrously wrong on the after-war. Bringing peace has proven to be a lot more difficult than bringing democracy, a fact that has not escaped the Syrian and the Iranian people: many of them are thinking "no, thanks". This has certainly been the USA's biggest failure so far.
As the Europacifists lick their wounds, one is left to contemplate the sad state of politics in the West at the turn of the millennium: the Left is good at domestic policy (from health care to social security), but the Right is better at foreign policy. If the Left had it its way, today the USSR would still be occupying Ukraine, the Baltic states and Central Asia, the world economies would be in a deep recession, and all dictators of the world (Qaddafi, Saddam, Taliban, etc) would be having a lot of fun. European (and American) voters are left to wonder what is the lesser evil: a bunch of incompetent historians who are actually quite honest, or a bunch of dangerous thieves who are rather competent historians? Western voters are confused because, quite simply, the situation is indeed quite confused.
TM, ®, Copyright © 2005 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved.
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- (April 2005)
Why socialist Europe failed.
During the 1960s, Western Europe developed a broad system to protect
its citizens against the unpredictable events of life that can cause
great individual and family devastation. The principle was noble, and
widely envied around the world (for example, by USA citizens who don't
have free health care and have mediocre pensions). This system is
now being undone almost everywhere in Western Europe, because, quite
simply, it is too expensive to sustain. Polls show that Europeans
consistently approve of paying taxes for state-run health care, education,
unemployment, retirement and various social programs, but increasing taxes
causes citizens to spend less, and the anemic consumption rate is the first
cause of economic stagnation in Europe, which in turn causes unemployment
and (bottom line) decreasing wealth. Thus it is the governments that are
beginning to rebel against the system: citizens complain about unemployment
and low incomes, but governments cannot create employment and growth if
citizens are paying so much in taxes and have no money left to purchase goods.
The causes of this evil loop are actually not structutal at all. The failure in
Western Europe does not mean that a similar system could not be implemented
elsewhere (e.g., in the USA).
The causes for the European failure are more demographic than anything else:
the system requires a continuous flow of contributions in order to pay benefits.
If the population decreases, the system receives fewer contributions, thus it
has to increase taxes. Population has been stable or declining in Western
Europe for decades (unlike in the USA, where population is growing faster
than in India or China). The demographic trend in Europe is unlikely to change.
Thus the system (which is basically a pyramidal scheme) does not work anymore.
This would not be a problem if costs were going down (as the costs of many other
goods are, from electronics to cars).
Instead, what makes the problem explosive
is the dramatic cost increase of providing these benefits. It has increased
faster than people's salaries. Thus people have to pay a higher and higher
percentage of their salaries in taxes to offset the increase in health care
costs.
Germans already pay about half of their salaries in taxes; which explains
why they have so little to spend on other goods; which explains why the
German economy has to rely on exports to offset the anemic internal demand.
Even so, German tax payers are not paying enough: Germany has a booming
budget deficit.
As the costs increase, we are reaching a point in which it will simply be
impossible for the government to provide for their citizens.
If Europeans want to preserve their safety net,
the only solution is to reduce its costs, which implies introducing
government-controlled prices on medicines, doctor salaries, senior housing, etc.
In other words: if you want to be socialist, be socialist.
The marriage of market economies (determining the prices of social services) and
social policies (offering those social services for free) is bound to
end in disaster.
Incidentally, people often confuse Catholicism and Socialism.
The safety net provided by governments is not "socialist" at all.
It is Catholic in nature. In fact, as percentage of GDP, the countries that
spend more on the safety net are the countries with
a strong Catholic background (Italy, France, Germany, Spain).
Protestant countries such as Britain, Canada, Australia
and the USA spend less (Scandinavian countries can afford great benefits
because they are very rich and have very few people).
In Protestant countries the most important issue is employment: everybody
must be able to get a job. In Catholic countries the most important issue
is the safety net.
The safety net comes with Catholicism, and was already
there centuries ago. It's the Catholic Church that holds the
government responsible for taking care of the poor and the weak.
(The same is true of Islamic countries: they too
provide excellent health care, unemployment and retirement
benefits. Even Saddam Hussein did).
Socialism is about sharing the production tools and making sure that everybody
works, which is the last thing that Catholics want: their mentality is to work
for an employer, not to run a commune.
Socialism is more likely in the USA (that was founded by
communes and that is oriented towards the stock market, i.e.
companies owned by the masses)
than in western Europe (that was always run by Lords
and where business is usually owned by families).
In a sense, Bush is more socialist than Schroeder, but
Schroeder is more Catholic than Bush.
People frequently misuse the word "socialism".
What is going bankrupt in Europe right now is not
socialism, but Catholicism.
Socialism is actually doing quite well (in the USA).
Marx would be proud of the startups of Silicon Valley and horrified by the
unemployment rates in italy, Germany, France and Spain.
TM, ®, Copyright © 2005 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved.
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- (April 2005)
Does the European constitution make sense?
Europeans are reluctant to endorse the constitution for the European
Union that their politicians worked out. One of the interesting
features of our age is that the political leaders seem more eager to
move towards a peaceful and integrated world than ordinary people are.
But, leaving that paradox aside, there is a fundamental level at which
the people may be more right than their governments.
The European Union constitution appears rather outdated because it is based
on the concept of geographic proximity. The idea is, basically, that physical
contiguity should prevail over any other factor and determine that
two countries need to become not only friends but also federated.
This is the ancient view of the world that wars occur between neighbors,
and nothing is worse than war: thus we want to avoid war, and the best
way to avoid a war is to remove the border.
As countless wars have proven (from Vietnam to Iraq), we don't live in
that age anymore. Countries go to war against countries that are
thousands of kms away. It was already this way in the past, as the
British and French empire proved, but physical contiguity was important
(the British created a strip of colonies from Egypt to South Africa).
Today, physical contiguity matters much less. The USA has no interest
in invading Mexico or Canada, but a lot of interest in invading Afghanistan
and Iraq (and possibly North Korea).
Globalization has also changed the importance of trade between neighbors.
Does the USA depend on trade with Mexico or on trade with Japan?
Is Germany more interested in the state of the French economy or in the
state of the USA economy? Just check how the stock markets tumble and
rise: the behavior of your neighbor matters very little.
Thus the fact that Italy borders on France is becoming less and less
relevant to decide which country Italy should federate with.
The notable exception is Eastern Europe, that still fears the periodic
fits of expansionism by its colossal neighbor, Russia. That region certainly
has a reason to think about geography. But, generally speaking, we live in
an age that has made physical contiguity an obsolete concept. Sometimes
it is faster to travel from Madrid to New York than from Madrid to a remote
French village. Goods are sold from Eritrea to California rather than
from Eritrea to neighboring Sudan.
The European Constitution, instead, is based on the idea that countries should
federate because they border on each other.
It is (whether Europeans like to admit it or not) the good old inferiority
complex towards the USA: the European Union is simply an imitation of the
USA, that was created based on the principle of territorial contiguity.
But Europe is not North America, and 2005 is not 1776. What made sense for
North America in 1776 does not necessarily make sense 230 years later and
6,000 kms away.
In fact, our age is the age in which territorial empires are disintegrating,
from Yugoslavia to the Soviet Union. Separatism is not only tolerated but
justified (thus Scotland now has its own parliament and Italian regions
are given more autonomy).
Give them a chance, and several Chinese provinces would probably
abandon Beijing. New countries have been created, from
Eritrea to Slovakia, based precisely on the fact that geographic proximity
is not a good reason to create a federation.
This is the fundamental inadequacy of the European constitution. When people
are reluctant to endorse it, they instinctively feel that there is something
wrong with the whole concept. What is wrong is the belief that Poland should
federate with Germany simply because it borders on Germany, regardless of what
kind of political, economic, cultural and (last but not least) blood ties
Poland has with Germany. Ditto for Italy and France, Portugal and Spain and so
forth.
If one looks at the various systems, it is not difficult to notice that
Britain is much closer to the USA than to France. Blair insists that Britain
is in Europe: where does he see that? Britain is all over the world, but
hardly ever in Europe. British companies treat Europe just like they treat
China or Brazil: a business opportunity.
Italians are asked to federate with German-speaking, French and Spanish people,
the very people who invaded, massacred and robbed Italy for so many centuries.
(Incidentally, France has always sheltered Italian terrorists wanted by the
Italian government).
On the other hand, Italians discovered America (which is named after an
Italian) and pretty much built the great USA cities, from New York to San
Francisco, and millions of Americans still have an Italian last name: how many
Spaniards or Austrians have an Italian last name?
There are probably stronger ties between Italy and the USA, than between Italy
and any European country. Ditto for Poland.
Why aren't Britain, Poland and Italy considering a federation with the USA?
They have stronger blood ties with the USA than with their neighbors.
What has Scandinavia in common with continental Europe? Economically,
politically, historically, ethnically they have little in common.
Let's be honest: how many peoples in Europe are truly crazy about federating
with British, French and Germans? How many people in Europe wake up in the
morning with the irresistible urge to become one with Britain, France and
Germany?
The old reason was that they live on the other side of the border, but is
it still such a crucial reason in a world in which air travel and fast
trains have made distances negligible?
Economically, it is far from clear that close integration between neighboring
countries brings growth: as the Eurozone became more and more integrated,
its economies have been stagnating, in fact becoming pretty much the least
vibrant in the entire world.
Thus the European Union is an ambitious experiment (integrating people that
have little in common other than geographic proximity) but an experiment that
seems to go against every trend that the modern world is witnessing in
political, economic and cultural integration over very long distances.
Put it this way: we live in a world in which Italy could as well federate
with Uruguay or Eritrea because distances matter less and less.
Why federate with France and not with Uruguay and Eritrea, which have
at least the same historical and blood ties with Italy as France (if not more)?
There is actually one non-geographical principle that underlies the
federation of Europeans: Christianity.
It makes sense that Pope Benedict XVI asks for the European Union to declare its
Christian essence because that, ultimately, is the only reason that the French
want to federate with the Lithuanians but not with, say, the Moroccans, who live
much closer: the principle of geographical proximity seems to end with the
borders of the Christian world.
But this is hardly something to be proud of: if religion is the key factor
defining the European Union, then the European Union could become the symbol
of religious intolerance in a world that is trying to abolish religious
divisions.
If Christianity is the key factor of European identity, then the European Union
is not only based on a principle that is becoming obsolete (geographical
proximity) but the European Union would even mean a return to the Middle Ages.
Right now the European crowds that are increasingly skeptic of integration
are simply sensing that there is something fundamentally wrong with
trying to build a USA-style federation in Europe in 2005.
It is not very a creative idea (yet another case of anti-Americans copying the
USA), and perhaps it goes against the very nature of the modern world.
(People who like conspiracy theories should also detect that European
integration was
largely a USA initiative: the USA encouraged Western Europeans to federate,
and to expand their federation, because it made them a bigger barricade
against Soviet expansionism and made their democratic process irreversible.
The USA won the war militarily, but then made sure its victory could not
be undone by fostering European integration.
Even today, the USA is the main sponsor of accepting Turkey in the European
Union, with the clear goal of expanding the democratic world to the Middle East
and making Turkish un-Islamic democracy irreversible.
In other words, the European Union has really been a USA tactical device,
and may still be).
Europe is already being passed by other regions of the world in so many
categories (from literature to cinema to, of course, economic growth).
Do Europeans really want to adopt a political model that would further
push them back compared with the modern, dynamic societies of the Far East?
Honestly, i think all of this is very old thinking: creating
federations out of contiguous space or, worse, religious beliefs.
NATO is the model for the future: physical contiguity matters, but what
truly matters is a common military interest in defending and spreading
democracy. What keeps NATO together and makes it a very modern concept is that
it has no boundaries (maybe it is time to change the "A" in NATO... Afghanistan
and Serbia were not exactly on the Atlantic Ocean, were they?).
Future "federations" need not be military in nature like NATO, but must
have common underlying goals that are not just geographic proximity.
The Europeans who drafted the EU are stuck in a world that is
rapidly becoming obsolete. The new world of global trade
(Hillary Clinton's "global village")
is one in which physical proximity is not "the" issue.
See also
Western Europe: towards a new Middle Age?
Changing the history of Europe
The East-West divide in the new European Union
Do not celebrate 1500 years of wars
How the USA saved Western Europe
TM, ®, Copyright © 2005 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved.
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- (March 2005)
Western Europe: towards a new Middle Age?
In 2005, Germany announced the highest unemployment rate since the 1930s.
That's a good definition of "decline and fall": Germany used to be a model
of economic development and full employment.
(The statistics actually do not tell the whole truth, which is even worse:
Germany's population is not growing.
Imagine if it were growing at the rate the USA population
is growing: the USA has to create millions of new jobs every
year just to keep the same employment rate. Germany has to
create zero new jobs a year to keep the same employment.
Even so, Germany is losing jobs).
Spain, France and Italy are not doing any better. They consistently rank
dead last in most of the Economist's statistics on economic growth.
This is not an isolated phenomenon: it is a trend that started with the end
of the Cold War and is now simply accelerating.
For a few centuries, western Europe managed
to make more profits than Asia, Africa and Latin America thanks to
technological progress.
Progress in western Europe slowed down during the Cold War, because
Europeans started focusing on welfare rather than profit. During the
Cold War they had a big advantage: third-world countries were pawns in
the war between USSR and USA, and their regimes were more interested
in power than in economics. The western European countries could also
rely on the USA to defend them for free. Thus there was little
pressure on western Europe to be competitive world-wide: there was
no world to compete with.
With the end of the Cold War, the third-world countries have changed
regimes and started focusing on the economy. Now, for the first time
in centuries, the profits in third-world countries are growing faster
than in western Europe.
It is inevitable that the third world will overcome western Europe.
We already witness the first Europeans who migrate from Europe to
Ghana or Cambodia. Soon it may become a huge flow of brains that
have no jobs in Europe but good jobs in Asia, Africa and Latin
America.
Compare with what happened in the Middle Ages. For a few centuries
people wanted to live around the Lord's castle. It was a mini-
communist system: the Lord gave people security, the people gave
the Lord all their crops, and then the Lord gave back some food
to them. Then merchants started creating towns that did not
depend on a castle. The people of those towns were making money.
More and more paesants moved from the "bourg" of the castle to
the town of the merchants. Eventually, the bourgs of the Lords
were abandoned even by the Lords, and today their castles are
nice tourist attractions.
I see something similar happening to Western Europe as the rest of the
world becomes more competitive.
The question is whether Western Europe can reverse its decline in
productivity and competitiveness. One should be skeptic because the
very essence of the modern western European state is its welfare state:
the state is designed to provide a safety net to its citizens, not to
create an infrastructure to increase the competitive advantage of the
country in the world. This has become the very identity of the state in
western Europe. Changing that identity would be tantamount to a revolution
like the French or Soviet revolution, something that is unlikely to happen
these days.
(Even science obeys this principle: science in Western Europe is not conceived
as a tool to create a more competitive economy, but as a form of "welfare",
sheltering a class of scientist-bureaucrats from the hazards of the real
world. See Nature's article on
European research lacking competitive edge).
The most likely outcome is that western Europeans will accept a slow but
steady decline compared with the rest of the world.
TM, ®, Copyright © 2005 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved.
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- (February 2005)
Airbus and Boeing: the European and the American way of designing the future.
Within a few days of each other, both European-based Airbus and USA-based
Boeing, the two main aircraft manufacturers in the world, announced new models
that embody their vision for the future of aviation.
Look closer, and you may notice that
they also embody two different visions of the world.
The Airbus A380 is a giant airplane. Its main goal is to reduce the cost of
flying, by squeezing 740 passengers into a plane. What is truly European is
the requirements on both individuals and societies. Do you hate the wait at
the airport for boarding the plane? Do you hate the wait on the plane for
disembarking to the gate? Imagine how long it will take to board not the usual
300-400 passengers, but 740 passengers: families with children, elderly people,
and the usual score of indisciplined passengers. Imagine the warm environment
on board, as 740 passengers compete for toilettes and magazines.
Imagine the fight for luggage at the baggage claim carousel.
The inconvenience for passengers increases if you consider that the range of
this monster is not much bigger than the range of existing jets.
This means that any very long flight will still involve one or two stopovers
(each time 740 passengers that disembark and then re-board).
But the inconvenience for passengers is nothing compared to the inconvenience
for countries and cities: the A380 requires longer and wider runaways than most
airports have, and (being a double-decker) requires different terminals than
the one built all over the world so far. Even with larger runways, most airports
will have to stop all traffic when an A380 is landing. The weight of the A380
might also require a reinforcement of all tunnels and overpasses.
Basically, Airbus is asking all
the airports in the world to completely redesign themselves.
Thus one can expect that the A380 will be able to fly to very few airports.
The motivation to make the required alterations would be stronger if the A380
were to fly very often. But a 740-seat airliner is not designed to fly
many times a day: it is designed to fly only on very major routes (on which it
is easy to collect passengers), and with a frequency that allows the airline
to find 740 passengers.
In concluding, Airbus is asking all the airports in the world to completely
redesign themselves in return for a few landings a week. It also promises
passengers a rather distressing experience, but, clearly, customer satisfation
was not the primary objective in designing this aircraft.
Compare with Boeing's strategy. Airbus' strategy is designed by bureaucrats
appointed by the French and British government. Boeing is run by managers who
have been appointed by the board of the company. You can tell by the almost
opposite viewpoint. Boeing's new aircraft, the 777-200LR, can load only
300 passengers but can land in all international airports, and it adds a
feature that both airlines and customers are going to love: a very long
range (up to 17,000 kms, or about 20 hours of continuous flight time).
That means: fewer stopovers. The 777-200LR will
be able to fly non-stop from New York to Hong Kong, from San Francisco to
Sydney. Only 300 passengers, and no stopovers.
This solution pleases airports (that do not have to change their terminals
or runaways), passengers (whose flights get simplified) and airlines
(that pay fewer airport fees for stopovers).
Boeing's approach may well prove to be flawed on other counts (the operating
costs), but it is driven by common sense. Airbus' approach may be great from a
technological viewpoint, but it sounds out of touch with reality.
TM, ®, Copyright © 2005 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved.
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- Europe till 2004
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