Friday, May 06, 2011

A thought

Maybe all the people who are asking "But how is it possible that Osama bin Laden lived down the road from an army base and Pakistan didn't know?" could be introduced to all the people who are saying "But you see, it's just not possible to have a currency union without having some sort of plan for it to eventually end up as a fiscal union!", and they can get married and bring up their children to believe in unicorns and the tooth fairy.
at

6 comments:

  1. Richard J5/06/2011 03:09:00 PM

    I get the point you're making (the importance of incompetence as a plausible explanation over conspiracies, I think) but I'd distinguish between the two on the grounds that the bureaucratic nature of the EU makes it both deadly dull and verbose, but provided you've got the iron buttocks, they do do what they say they'll do, for the reasons stated. (Having been cudgeled round the head today with a brief chat on the AIFM this point is fresh in my mind.)

    I'm not sure I could make the same statement about the ISI.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Deep Trunk5/06/2011 07:50:00 PM

    You must be a liberal (in the endangered American species sense) because you assume a positive offspring result.

    As I remember my high school Mendelian genetics you would get four offspring one ISI, once currency unions phobic, and two who are both ISI/Moola Union crazy.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The Rioja Kid5/07/2011 04:11:00 AM

    It's more a point about the good old Zizekian "unknown knowns". Everyone, literally everyone, knows that EMU was a plan for "ever closer union" and eventually a single european fiscal state. Similarly, nobody can possibly believe that at least part of the Pakistani state colluded in hiding bin Laden. But I've been watching a week's media entirely put together by people who for some reason feel obliged to pretend that they don't know either of these things.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Phil5/07/2011 07:06:00 AM

    I nodded off midway through your debate with Dan H. on B&T, but if we assume this (the Pakistan point) it does put rather a different light on what would otherwise be a no-messing act of war by the US. Somewhere there's been a conversation ending with "And what are they going to do about it?" And it must to some degree reduce the ISI's capacity to play both sides of the street in future.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous5/07/2011 10:18:00 AM

    Relevant linkage:

    http://openthemagazine.com/article/international/besieged-not-fallen

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13317770

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous5/07/2011 05:51:00 PM

    "Similarly, nobody can possibly believe that at least part of the Pakistani state colluded in hiding bin Laden."

    A missing "did not" or "fail to" in there somewhere (I hope)!

    ReplyDelete