VIDEO: Nigel Farage Explains Why Greece Needs a Floating DrachmaThursday, May 24, 2012 – by Staff Report
President, we're in the midst of an economic and increasingly humanitarian crisis and yet Commission president Barroso is not here. Indeed, Herman van Rompuy is not here either. Not that it really matters, because they're not prepared to listen to any debate or any argument. They're intent on pursuing their political dream of a United States of Europe. They're prepared to commit economic suicide for an entire continent. – YouTube
Dominant Social Theme: If Greece leaves, the world ends.
Free-Market Analysis: Nigel Farage, MEP, Leader of the UK Independence Party regularly gives Eurocrats a dose of plain-speaking that they rarely gets elsewhere. This video shows us he is in fine form.
In fact, most of what Farage – who is a hero at this point to anti-EU conservatives in Britain – has elaborated on in the past years has now come true. This doesn't seem to have endeared him to his colleagues, though.
This video, in addition to providing Farage at his best (how does he speak extemporaneously with such passion and vigor?) also provides us with a plain-spoken commentary as to why if Greece were to leave the EU, it should be WITHOUT a euro peg.
In answer to a question at the end of his commentary, he makes the point that a devalued drachma would certainly raise the cost of imports for Greece but it would also encourage innovation. The lower the drachma went and the less it bought outside, the more people would attempt to create local alternatives.
Inevitably, some of these alternatives might find a market OUTSIDE Greece. Thus it is that monetary competition fosters innovation. There is no substitute for it.
In fact, it is good to see this sort of point being made, as it is a free-market assertion. The idea is that people are not potted plants and that they will not sit idly by while their livelihoods are destroyed.
This gets to the nub of arguments currently being floated by pro-EU bureaucrats and officials. The argument is being made that Greece would be hit with a perfect storm of hyperinflation. But Farage's answer to that is that people take what Austrian-economist Ludwig von Mises called "human action."
People will make their own way in the world, and are especially apt to do so if they are not barred from doing so by laws, potential imprisonment, monetary fines, etc. All things being equal, most people are able to survive with the help of family, friends and community.
This is not the message being sent, of course. The pro-EU controlled mainstream media is in full cry over the horror of a Greek withdrawal from the EU – or at least from the euro. If Greece does it successfully, sure it will encourage others to do it, too.
Yes, those within the EU are deadly afraid of a successful Greek exit. Iceland has effectively made such an exit in its own way and the result has been a virtual news blackout on that tiny country's successes.
Here's hoping that Greeks get a chance to try to reclaim their national heritage – and a floating drachma. As Farage puts its, if the Greeks continue to stay in the EU with the euro they shall be "totally destroyed."
Here's some more from his comments:
Tomorrow night, Mr van Rompuy has called yet another summit at which he's going to present a strategy for growth and jobs. Elected MEPs, representatives of the people of Europe from left and right - we've heard it all before - remember the euro itself was supposed to create growth and jobs and yet it is actively destroying both of those things.
The remedy we're being offered is more of the same. I would suggest that the medicine is killing the patient, and to increase the dosage is madness.
And don't listen to those who will tell you that the only alternative is for Greece to stay in the euro. Everyone's pushing this. David Cameron, all the other leaders are saying, we must keep Greece in the euro, if she leaves the sky will fall in.
It won't! There'll be a few difficult weeks and then things will settle down. There'll be a boom in tourism, investment will start to come back into Greece, innovation will start to come back into Greece as people start making products to beat expensive imports.
Indeed Greece outside of the eurozone may well provide to be an inspiration for Spain, for Portugal and many other countries. We need to recognise that a terrible mistake has been made. We must resolve to put it right. We've got to give people hope because out there now is absolute despair.
Here's the video. Farage is in fine form.
(Video from europarl's YouTube user channel.)
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