New York, New York!

I am thinking I should fly to New York with British Airways. After all they are the best airline in the world, and since they are losing money I may not get too many chances to use them again. First class maybe? It would be a nice way to arrive at the beginning of a new chapter living on the other side of the pond.

Now I'm pretty patriotic, so why am I talking about moving state-side. Well this comes with the news that the newly appointed economic minister for the EU is French. Why then is this a reason for me to consider a flat (or should I say apartment) in Manhattan. Well, the new economic minister of the EU is French, this means that the UK is quite possibly screwed.

The problem with this is rooted the the differences between the French and British economy. They are completely different. The French economy is based on government protectionism, a strong leaning towards socialism and of course the desire to strike every five minutes. The French don't seem particularly bothered that their economy is accepted a stagnant. But they why would you when you can stay up until 6 in the morning on warm nights in the South of France sipping an espresso watching the moon light reflect off the sea...

Where was I? Oh yes. So essentially the French economy is stagnant and the government protects it as best as it can from competition from other nations (eg CAP). As a friend of mine from Notts once said 'if you want to get on the good side of French people rememeber how to say "I love to strike".

In contrast the UK has a completely different work ethic. In the provinces, sure, life is quite laid back, you go to work at your customer telephone helpline from 9 until 5 and then you come home and enjoy your life. But that isn't the case in London. London is the free market on cocaine (sometimes literally). If you live in London the next deal/case/contract is your next breath, if you miss it you're going to die. I would say in London people eat and sleep work but that would be misleading, it would imply that they get to sleep occasionally. In London once you've worked for a week with 4 hours of sleep each night to close a contract, you don't finish and then sleep for the next two days, you hit the clubs with your fellow workers and stay awake for another 24 hours, just for the fun of it.

As a result London wages are substantially higher than everywhere else in the UK. Deservedly so too. But the real heart of London, the beating heart of the UK economy is finance. Without it would would have a deficit so big we'd be... well the United States (jk). We don't make anything in the UK after all. We don't do cars (not outside of F1 racing anyway). We don't make ships. We don't make most of the things with a high value, we just make money. This works very well for us and as a result we are the country of finance. We have two rivals (New York and Hong Kong) but we are on the top of the pile. Well, we are right now.

But now we are going to have a man making our regulations who was brought up in a French economy. This will mean that he will want strong regulation for more stability and less profit.
The thing is 'less profit' rings in a bank managers ears like the trumpet of the horsemen of the Apocalypse. It will cause any bank directors hairs to stand on end. They will have a shiver down their spine like the coldest ice and then after being planted on the spot for 10 minutes without a single movement they will reach for their phones call their board and tell them they are moving to New York or Hong Kong, or hades, whichever one has the lowest income tax.

This the French won't care about because they have no banks to lose anyway. Britain on the the other hand have a lot to lose.

So what can be done. Well what should have happened in the first place is that the democratically elected representatives of the British people should have done what they are mean to and represent the people! This would mean that we wouldn't have the Lisbon Treaty in the first place and we wouldn't have to care about Michel Barnier or Sarkozy or anyone else for that matter. But then 'politicians do know best' don't they?

Anyway, I'm focusing too much on the past, to the future!

What is going to happen now? Well thankfully regardless of what the EU thinks it is going to do if it tries to over regulate then the UK hopefully will have the 'stones' to tell them that we've not going to agree to have our country sent back to the stone age. The EU likes making these noises about how they are going to make us suffer but realistically we have a Tory government coming up who would love to have some good ammunition to shoot at the Euro-philes. Europe isn't so stupid as to provide it for them.
Anything damaging to the UK in the next few years will be equally damaging to Europe.

So maybe I won't have to move to New York, maybe there is still hope that I can live in the UK and it won't fall apart in the immediate future, still it does make you wonder what berk thought that two countries were going to get on economically when one is as red as you can be without calling each other comrade and the other is as blue as you can be without calling each other 'dude'.