Hello David, I am sorry to peck your head always on this subject, but I just wanted to make a couple of points re your comment on the ‎EU this morning:

1/ the Euro is one of the reasons but not the main reason for perpetually weak gdp growth‎. Poor governance, increasing budget deficits, lack of reforms, partisan interests have been the main problem, all more obvious as devaluation of national currencies were not possible anymore and a fact most people, especially in the so called periphery, are acutely aware of. 

2/ the EU is not an unelected bureaucracy. One can be critical of the effectiveness of EU institutions but there is the European council to represent each state, and an elected European parliament.

3/ no country in Europe has thousands of years of history. In fact most of them have spent a significant amount of time under a common rule, which has created that common denominator at the basis of the idea of Europe itself.

4/ it is true that many people are disaffected and cynical about Europe; however, especially for young people, the idea of not being an EU citizen is unimaginable and undesirable.

Said that Portuguese and Greek government bonds again show signs of weakness, Italian banks continue to trend lower, and a UK departure would indeed represent a significant and maybe fatal set back. 

As an investor I am underweight Europe (all of it) and will remain so at least until after the UK referendum.

David Fuller's view

I feel neither head pecked nor henpecked by your email, but I certainly do appreciate informative comments on the EU at this challenging time, so many thanks.

Re your point 1: I agree with all these comments but the serious economic decline set in after the launch of the Euro in 1999 and their declared objective to form a ‘United States of Europe’.   I disagree with your second point.  There are democratic talking shops in Brussels but the real power is wielded by Germany and France, carried out on a day to day basis by the unelected bureaucracy.  Re 3: the late hour got to me; I meant to say hundreds of years of history, and corrected the copy earlier today.  Thanks for pointing it out.  Inevitably there was some “common rule” but what historians have mainly written about, as I recall, were the many wars.  Re 4: Euroland’s idealistic youth have been badly let down by the scandalous unemployment, which is eroding Europe’s potential.  The region was far better off, pre-Euro, as the European Common Market.

Europe today has a wonderfully diversified cultural background, developed over centuries.  Many of its citizens are highly educated.  Sadly, the EU is not helping them to fulfil their potential.