To hell in a handcart.

Three interesting articles in yesterday's papers throw light on the current economic crisis. The article by Antonio Puri Purini in the Corriere della Sera, Dalla Finanza all' Antipolitica i Nemici della Moneta unica, identifies the two enemies of the single currency: international finance and the far right. The former object to the EU 'perché unica a mantenere un sistema non interamente dominato, grazie all’ economia sociale di mercato, dalla logica del profitto' [because it is the only one to maintain a system not entirely dominated by the logic of profit, thanks to its social market economy]. The leaders of the latter are the agents of international finance and their followers its dupes, driven by ignorance and fear.

An article by Philip Inman in the Guardian dissects the failures of Monetarism. Although its proponents' recipe for growth is cutting workers' terms and conditions it 'is alarming how easily monetarist ideas have prevailed …monetarists have convinced working people they are the reformers and that social democrat parties are a conservative barrier to recovery. Social democrats only seek to preserve the privileges and outmoded practices that got us into trouble, they argue.' And so the turkeys vote for Christmas, repeating Cameron's cry that it woz Gordon Brown wot got us in this mess, when in reality his mistake like that of 'Hank Paulson in the US and finance ministers across Europe of all political colours was to believe in the low regulation story and watch, with regulators at their side, as banks went on a lending spree.'

The third article, by Dominic Rushe JP Morgan investment boss Ina Drew quits over bank's $2bn losses, reminds us that the spree isn't over. The only block would be strong EU institutions opposed to 'una parte della finanza internazionale dominata da hedge funds aggressivi e insofferenti verso regole e freni, è inesorabilmente attratta verso la prospettiva del guadagno immediate' [the section of international finance dominated by aggressive hedge funds, intolerant of rules and restraints and inexorably attracted by the prospect of short-term gains]. No wonder they want to destroy first the single currency and the EU itself and reduce its workers to the miserable condition of Chinese coolies or Indian untouchables.