Leaving Europe cold
Compare and contrast the scene in onshore Europe. Trading with our neighbours might have been our obvious choice in the days when a waggon of hay could roll no further than the nearest market town, but not after the industrial revolution, and the offshore revolution leaves it cold. We can now see that this revolution leaves Europe's rulers cold, too. It depends on open markets in money and capital, and they want to put these markets in their place. We need to get a grip on them, says Gerhard Schroder. Indeed, Europe's grandest project of the moment is to abolish its market in curren- cies. Their replacement, the euro, will be born on New Year's Day, but this preco- cious baby is already having teething trou- bles. (It may have been misconceived.) The City's markets are standing by to trade in it as another offshore currency, and Tim Congdon believes that the City has 20 or 30 more good years ahead — 'if it is assumed that the trend towards market liberalisation is deeply entrenched.' In Europe, that trend has some digging to do.
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