"Last week, I read in the papers that Brussels, after having used 21 scientists for 3 years to do the research, have concluded that bottlers of water must be forbidden to put on their labels that drinking water can fight against dehydration and that anyone neglecting this edict now law will be subject to 2 years in prison. I don't really understand how the consumer would have been misled or monetarily abused by this affirmation. I do perceive that European tax payers have financed a very expensive research program, to say nothing of legislative fees that produce nothing to the wellbeing of the citizen.

"Perhaps the effort was to contribute a small blotch in the style "you see your governments do get things done". A small eraser to forget those who have contributed in ruining trillions of euros of citizen's savings and were sanctioned by keeping their labels on what they manufactured and obliged to keep their bonuses for having done so… We talk freely of the need to persecute those who have participated in crimes to humanity. We seem to have succeeded in dealing with these monsters.

"But we have completely ignored crimes to the wellbeing and safety of one's hard earned savings. Yet these crimes are the very seeds that ferment and fester in the minds of those who commit crimes against humanity and that, my dear friends, is far more fearful and criminal.

"Question: Rubini calls those who propose to go back to the gold standard as Quacks and frauds. Ok. Fine. But what about those who have and continue to have what I charitably call a misinterpreted Keynesian policy that has in a very short historical period destroyed wealth and probably the Occidental civilization as we knew it? Has he discovered a word that describes these creatures? The present activity in gold seems to say rather clearly that if our economists continue to be against gold, the citizen has already begun to decide that they have gone back to the gold standard. But it is perhaps my misinterpretation of current prices…

"Merkel has a proposition to modify existing treaties that would allow a consolidation of the European Union under the condition that it includes severe controls, regulations and sanctions. Wonderful! But what makes anyone believe that these same words used before will now be respected?"

David Fuller's view Thanks for a wise and also wry email, certain to resonate with many other subscribers.

I believe David Brooks column above is not far removed from some of the points in this email, which is also addressed in more detail by Mike Lenhoff below.