Finally it is the end of the week, time to relax in bed before heading off to sleep. I’m at the moment pondering whether I should change my alarm back to 9:00 am or maybe 9:30 am to get an extra bit of sleep or whether I should stick to 8:30 am. I know an extra hour of sleep probably isn’t worth much but I did find it restful this morning doze in bed until 9:30 am which made getting out of bet a whole lot easier. I guess I’ll see how I feel on Monday and see what happens. I’ve done my shopping online with Woolworths and it’ll get delivered on Monday – it saves me from having to carry home four bags of stuff on the bus and the added benefit that I can take my time, compare prices and plan my meals for the coming week then buy according to that meal plan.
The more the election goes on and the more I hear the great policies coming out of the Green Party the more impressed I am that the left wing in New Zealand is finally getting their act together. I hope that even if it doesn’t translate to a victory for the left in the coming election that the foundation that is being laid with this election will translate to even better policies in the future. It is funny how as I have gotten older I’ve moved further to the left – things that you believe had always existed and always worked a particular way you quickly realise that isn’t the case and that a lot of what we believe is ideology rather than objective reality. As a society we tell ourselves narratives about the world in justification of the way things are and in turn we internalise that to the point that we convince ourselves that a different world isn’t possible – the world we live in is the only world that has existed.
The conversation that I see recently has been regarding the protests and riots occuring in France along with the fact that France has a very high level of public debt. I think what is being ignored is the fact that what makes the situation difficult is the fact that France like many other countries in Europe have the Euro which is effectively a ‘gold standard’ as so far as the European Central Bank are not allowed to monetise debt in the same way that the United States cannot go bankrupt because they ultimately control their own currency. The big question is how the European Union will respond to the challenges regarding public debt because the current status quo is eventually going to result in a rethink regarding the role of the European Central Bank.
On a side note, I agree that free movement and free trade in Europe is a good idea but I’m sceptical of a single currency because of the straight jacket that it imposes on the participating member countries. Maybe the better solution to having a Euro would be to have a bancorp that John Maynard Keynes talked about which would make trade easier for the participating countries while also giving each country the flexibility to manage monetary policy to meet the needs of the country – raising interests rates when needed, lowering when stimulus is required rather than a one size fits all approach that having a single currency and monetary policy results in.
