500 British Business Luminaries moan about 50pct tax rate

The arguments of these 500 pillars of the British Economy are laughable but also symptomatic of the feeble state of entrepreneurship that has been a factor for the relative (and absolute?) decline of British Business over the past 40-50 years. Would these businessmen really work less just to spite the government? Their income would decline even more if they would do so. Would they really cut employment or refrain from expanding the business if a good opportunity presents itself? As Warren Buffett argues over and over again, the economy in the US, for example, grew pretty fast in the 1950s and 1960s when top marginal tax rates were much higher.

How difficult is it for a country to leave the Euro?

Learned Minds can recite catalogues full of reasons why it is very difficult, even impossible, for a member state of the Euro Zone to abandon the Euro. But all the legal niceties will count for little if the decision is made to cut the Gordian Knot. While to Euro as a practical instrument is quite useful for tourists as well as businesses the boost to the economies to the member states was at best marginal during the past ten years. These days the exchange of currencies is nearly frictionless and very cheap in the day of the Internet - for private people and even more so for business purposes. But the argument that the exit from the Euro Zone would be extremely difficult and take a long time to prepare is difficult to swallow. It should be possible to declare on any weekend that the exit has been decided and that all bank accounts, financial assets and liabilities will be frozen and converted into the new currency from that moment on. Unfortunately, this analysis makes it even more likely that the Euro Zone will lose one of its members at some point in the future because any sane investor or business manager will henceforth take this possibility into account when making decisions.

Euro Summit - what they did not tell you

Scholastic scholars would have felt perfectly at home in the discussions about the Euro and the Euro Crisis. What ALL experts seem to be forgetting is the poor taxpayer and citizen who has no say at all in this. The major contributing factor to the current situation in Euroland has been totally wrong (one might even say foolhardy and/or idiotic) decision making by the 'fathers' of the Euro (who by now all enjoy their pampered life paid out of generous pension the bill for which is picked up by their hapless victims). Without the strainghtjacket of the Euro individual countries or banks would have gone bankrupt by now and life would go on without creating too much systemic danger for all industrial countries.

Bloomberg: Sandblasted 'Beauty' and Property 'Investor' solve Euro Crisis

When someone with no background or experience in Europe pontificates about the Euro Crisis one wonders what the point of Business Television is. Maybe Mort Zuckerman plays golf with Michael Bloomberg but otherwise we are at a loss what his special insight about the Crisis should be. Maybe the 0.001 % really know something that could help solve the World's problems - or maybe they are just part of the problem?

Fiscal Union - only precursor to an even bigger crisis

We want to keep this post short and to the point: those members of the Commentariat who think that Fiscal Union will solve the current Euro Crisis will be in for a rude awakening - in a few years time, but maybe much earlier. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and there are quite a few weak links in the Euro-Chain. Even mighty Germany (as those on One Euro jobs there know already) is not as strong as it might appear. Its performance is strong only because the other countries are weak, bit like the conundrum in the currency markets where a strong currency means that the other side of the trade is by definition weak). Debts in Germany are also sky-high, especially if you include all private and bank debt and - most importantly - unfunded pension promises etc. How the poor German taxpayer, squeezed that he is by a relatively efficient (and merciless) tax collecting system, is supposed to carry the burden of all the freeloaders in the Euro Gravy train remains to be seen. I would not put my money on it except in very short term trades.

Sarkozy: a flawed mind?

Anyone who can endure a certain amount of (intellectual) pain would do well to have a close look at the French President's speech to party loyalists held in Toulon on December 1st. While the French are often said to be particularly rational followers of the 'Cartesian' tradition we were aghast at the incoherent reasoning cobbled together in this effort to explain and possibly solve the current crisis in the EU. If the analysis is wrong the solutions cannot be the right ones and while a temporary patching up of the Euro structure might well work it gives little cause for longer-term optimism.

George Osborne: clueless at the rudder

All the razzmatazz surrounding today's autumn statement by the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer cannot disguise one fact: the country is helplessly exposed to the decisions of a man without any practical business experience or specialist economic background. Having a (minor) title, going to the 'right' schools and having the 'right' friends still seems to count for more than competency. Only consolation - the situation is not much better in many other countries. It is a sad indictment of our so-called Western Democracies that wide-ranging decisions can be taken by individuals that owe their wafer-thin legitimacy to an election that is often fought on image and broken election promises.