I’m not sure it matters.

I think both apply to the current EU leadership, who — I am sure — have followed Jesus’s sardonic injunction and made to themselves friends of the riches (“mammon”) of unrighteousness, “that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations.” Does anyone doubt that — regardless of what happens to the Euro, the European Union, and the citizens of the various countries involved — the various EU leaders and bureaucrats will come out just fine?

I am cheerfully ready and willing to be wrong about the fate of the Euro and/or the EU; both may well survive in some form out of sheer inertia and entrenchment. But there remain the cold equations: debt and deficits and unfunded liabilities can be hid under the financial ocean for a while, but — as Warren Buffet famously observed — when the tide goes out, we get to see who’s swimming naked. And the tide is going out everwhere at once: Europe, North America, Asia.

In the end, we may see a political realignment in Europe that rivals the collapse of the Soviet Union — a development that itself was considered impossible (absent a world war) and yet happened in a matter of months. The resulting financial tsunami is likely to wash over North America and Asia, worstening the financial issues in both regions.

Decades of experience have taught us time and again that in socialism, we do indeed eventually run out of other people’s money; and that wishful thinking and good intentions and desire for utopic justice will not, in fact, somehow bend the unforgiving laws of mathematics.

Keynes, challenged on the long-run implications of his economic theories, quipped, “In the long run, we are all dead.” He might just have well said, “Après nous, le déluge.” We have sold our birthright for a mess of pottage, and our children and grandchildren will wear our shackles.

And a good Monday morning to all of you. ..bruce w..

France’s future is cloudy.

OK, OK, cheap symbolism, but that’s the best kind, for reasons that I’ll come with eventually. Meanwhile, in case you’re wondering about the strange post name, “Tour Eiffel” is French for “Eiffel Tower”, and yes, we went on a tour of the Eiffel Tower this morning. We had gone last year (just standing in line, not as part of a tour), but it was cloudy, and so I couldn’t get clear photos of Paris. We had high hopes this morning — it was sunny and clear when we left the hotel, and still sunny when we started the tour at the Tower, but by the time we got to the top — well, you can see. All very symbolic.

I asked Hailey — our chipper and informative tour guide from the Maritime Provinces who has been here since last summer — what she thought about the Eurocrisis, and she frankly admitted to knowning almost nothing about it. On the other hand, she has a country to go back to that is frankly in better economic and political shape that most of the rest of the world, so why should she care?

Meanwhile, it was very, very cold and a bit windy to boot up on the Tour Eiffel. I don’t get cold easily, but I’ve been back here in the hotel room for 30 minutes or so, and I’m still a bit chilled. I’m also falling asleep and have to decide whether I want to take a nap or (cue Popeye-eating-spinach music) take a bottle of 5 Hour Energy. In either case, I’m going to have to warm up before I can decide whether to go stand out in the cold again in hopes to getting to interview a few more folks. .bruce w..

Sometime early this morning, while thinking about my goals for this trip, I came to the conclusion that my probability of success was pretty low in doing cold approaches on strangers whose language I didn’t speak and who likely didn’t speak my language in turn. So instead I went to a nearby store, bought some large (A3) drawing papar and a large marker, and made two signs that read:

American writer wants
to interview you about
Eurozone/EU crisis.

(Il ne parle pas français.)

There was an area with low polished stone walls (surrounding three sides of a car ramp doing down to an underground garage) near the entrance to our hotel. I planned to tape the two signs to that wall, set up my camcorder on a tripod, take out my clipboard and notebook, and wait for the interviews to roll in.

Now, before you laugh too hard, stop and think about it. If a French reporter set him(or her)self up in Times Square — and the Champs-Elysees is a cross between Times Square (sans billboards) and the biggest upscale mall you can imagine — and put up a sign saying that he wanted to talk about America’s economics problems, he’d probably have a line a mile long. Of course, if he limited it to those who could speak French, it would be much, much shorter, but given (as we are told) how English is a universal language in Europe (and, indeed, most of the world), that shouldn’t be as much of an issue.

Anyway, the first problem I ran into was the one mentioned in my last post: there was a serious police sweep, with serious-looking police, going on pretty much right where I had planned to set up. After watching them for a little while and realizing they weren’t going to be done any time soon, we moved about half a block up towards the Arc de Triomphe, where there are a similar stone wall around a pedestrian subway. I set up the signs, set up the camera, took out my nootbook, and waited.

And waited. And waited.

Lots of people walked by, reading the sign, glancing surripitously at me, then avoiding any further eye contact. Then, after about 15 minutes of this, four young men set up some audio equipment on the sidewalk about 25-30 yards away from me, turned on some hip-hop music, and began to breakdance. I kid you not: within 30 seconds, a crowd of 100+ people had formed a square around them. They performed (loudly) for about 20 minutes, took a 10-minute break, then started all over again. This continued the whole time I was out there.

[Continuing to write the next morning] I really was lagged last night. Sat down this morning to finish this post and had to un-check several of the categories I had set (Credit Backlash, Holidays, Intelligence, Japan).

Anyway, yesterday I did end up with the two interviews (and the walk-by cursing) I posted about below. I also had two groups of youth — one all female, the other a mix — come up to practice their English on me, giggle, then move on. I had a few people (again, teens/20s) take photos of me (“Yeah, there was the crazy old American out on the Champs-Elysees…”).

I’m going to word the sign differently today, partly as a linguistic experiment, partly because I’m not sure my wording yesterday was felicitous. It struck me afterwards that — given the stakes for France and for all of Europe — it was a bit like setting a sign up outside of an oncology ward saying, “I want to interview you about your relative with cancer.”

More police sirens during the night, though I don’t know whether that’s typical on the Champs-Elysees or not.

On tap for today: a guided tour of the Eiffel Tower (avoiding the enormous, slow lines), and then an attempt to gather more interviews. Stay tuned. ..bruce..

I did get two interviews. In two hours. Plus one bit of pungent walk-by commentary. I’ll chronicle the whole effort later, but here’s the feedback from today.

Thomas — in his 30s, and looking like a classic clean-cut-with-stubble French professional — described himself as ‘not a typical Parisian’, though he never quite explained what that meant. His general view of the Euro crisis that of running towards a cliff: everything’s fine until you hit the edge, and then ‘boom’. He focused mostly on the cultural differences between the Germans and everyone else — in particular, getting the Germans to share anyone else’s point of view or to acknowledge that there might be a better or at least different way. As he put it, the Germans are great marketers, but after a while they begin to believe their own marketing, and so does everyone else.

He also drew another interesting comparison between the Germans and the French. He said (again paraphrasing) that Germans resist any change, but when they are finally convinced that change is necessary, they go through a period of upheaval (Thomas said “chaos”) and then make real, substantive change. By contrast, he said, the French are always willing to tweak and adjust, but they never seem to make the fundamental, ground-up changes that are needed.

Finally, Thomas seemed to be genuinely torn between admitting that the Germans pretty much are correct in needed to be fiscally responsible and at the same time wondering if the cure is going to simply make things worse. Thomas used the analogy of a starter (by which I believe he meant the choke) on an older car — that if the engine is really cold, you need to pull the starter out to get the engine started. But he also acknowledged that the rest of Europe had been continuing to drive with the starter pulled out, and that this wasn’t very good for the engine.

As far as the ultimate fate of the Euro and possiby the European Union itself, Thomas acknowledged that the risks and dangers are there, but said, “At the end of the day, we have no choice — they will have to work this out.”

A while after I spoke with Thomas, a tall, dishevled man stood a ways off and read my sign. He then walked towards me, laughing, though not in a friendly way. As he passed close to me, he gave me the bird and said, walking away behind me, “America is the problem, not Europe. F**king America, f**king dollar…” More than that, I could not make out, due to the noise of the area.

My other real interview of the afternoon was Matthieu, who looked to be in his 20s and of Asian descent. Matthieu, who said he worked at a bank, felt that the origin of the current EU crisis was the American banking (by which I think he meant financial) system itself. In effect, he said that American financial firms were (for a while) so successful at getting higher and higher returns on investment that European banks felt they could and should do the same, instead of remaining conservative and content with lower returns on lower risks. In particularly, he was critical of ‘state’ banks that try to compete with private banks but can’t, really.

Interestingly, as for sovereign debt, Matthieu actually saw the American debt problem as the bigger crisis. He felt that a major financial downturn by the EU would weaken it but not have a lot of impact outside of Europe, while a similar financial collapse by the US would seriously impact the rest of the world. He also had serious concerns about China, where (as he put it) the rulers are rich but everyone else is poor, and that the governmnet is having a hard time managing that.

Next post: why it took me two hours to get two interviews today. ..bruce w..

I’m not sure what Tocqueville would have made of the Euromess, but I think it’s pretty easy to guess.

On the other hand, I think I may have discovered part of the core financial problem here in France. Sitting in the lobby of our hotel, waiting for a room to become available, we ordered (each) a 250ml Pepsi Max. Cost per Pepsi: 8 euros, or (doing some quick conversion) about $87/gallon. No, seriously. At that price, for what Steve Jobs famously dismissed as “colored sugar water” (though, in this case, simply colored water — it lacks even the sugar), I would expect an active commodities market. 

I have not as yet acosted anyone to ask them about the Eurocrisis. In part, it’s because it’s cold and drizzly outside, which makes person-in-the-street interviews a bit tricky. Mostly, though, it’s because I wanted to shower, shave and freshen up a bit after wearing these clothes for the last 20 hours or so.

And, of course, having gotten a room around noon and having done all of the above, I then promptly violated every jet-lag-adjustment tip and crashing for nearly 5 hours after the hotel. Clearly the 250ml of Pepsi Max wasn’t enough to keep me awake.

Speaking of active commodites markets, now that we’re both up, we’re going to hit the Christmas market along the Champs-Elysees. I’ve seen at least one news report saying that such traditional markets here in Europe are suffering or might suffer because of the economic crisis.

We shall see. ..bruce w..

So as I sit here on the plane, I have been trying to think of what questions I do want to ask, particularly those that are likely to provide the most interesting answers. Here are some of the ones I’ve come up with so far, though I am open to suggestions:

• Has the Euro-crisis had any direct impact on you so far?
• What are your biggest concerns about the possible collapse of the Euro?
• What are your concerns, if any, about the proposed bailout efforts to help salvage the Eurozone?
• Do you think French citizens should pay to bail out Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal?
• What political worries do you have if the Eurozone and the EU itself collapses?
• So, how about those Germans?

Other thoughts? ..bruce w..

Important events and circumstances have combined in such a way that in a few short hours I will be boarding an airliner on my way to the Continent, to witness first-hand the turmoil of fiscal and sovereign upheaval caused by the ever-imminent collapse of the Eurozone, and to report on it here to you.

OK, here’s what really is happening. A few weeks ago, I noticed that I was going to come up roughly 10,000 miles short on requalifying for a certain elite status on a certain airline. I had enjoyed having that status all this year, and I was not looking forward to dropping down to the next lower status. So I did what hundreds of other travelers do each year: I booked a flight for no other reason than to achieve that status.

But the cheapest fare I could find that would produce the necessary miles was to Paris — and I would have to stay a few days for that fare. I had brought my wife along on a business trip to Paris a year ago — the first time there for both of us — and it had been wonderful. I could not not take my wife along. (“Yes, dear, I’m flying to Paris this weekend — can you take care of the house and dogs while I’m gone? I’ll bring you back something.”) Actually, my sweet wife Sandra would have been completely supportive, but I still couldn’t do that to her. (Text from me: “Gosh, the Christmas market on the Champs-Elysees is just as magical this year as it was last year!” Text from her: “Aw, that’s wonderful.” Not texted: Sobs.)

So in a few hours, we will head to our local airport to start the trek to Paris. However, I now have a goal in mind: to find out what the average, typical Parisian — that is to say, one who (a) speaks English and (b) is willing to be accosted by an iPhone-wielding American — thinks about the Euro crisis and the future of the French Fifth Republic (and the possible rise of the German Fourth Reich).

Stay tuned.  ..bruce w..

P.S. Have to work on my pronunciation for Je suis un blogueur américain.

Next-to-the-last day of the cruise. Spent the whole day at sea today, on our way from St. Thomas to the Bahamas, sailing past and north of our previous stops at Puerto Rico and Grand Turk. This meant more panels and activities today, and some great panels they were, including one on the realities of political leadership with former Governor John Sununu, former Governor Tim Pawlenty, former Senator Fred Thompson, and Tony Blankley. Had the chance at lunch, at dinner, and at receptions to spend time talking with Jim Geraghty, Victor Davis Hanson, John Yoo, Andrew Klavan, Fred Thompson, Rich Lowry, and John J. Miller. The whole day was capped off with an absolutely hilarious late night session with Mark Steyn, Jonah Goldberg, and Roman Genn.

The big discussion through the cruise has been and remains: which candidate for the Republicans? No one among the speakers seems terribly happy with any of the candidates, though a few of the big-name speakers (Sununu, Pawlenty) have formally endorsed Romney. The real concern is that, in spite of truly wretched prolonged economic conditions, Obama could be re-elected anyway — and that if that happens, we just won’t be able to avoid a true financial collapse of some sort. It’s not at all clear we can avoid it even if Obama is defeated.

Rough seas ahead, folks.  ..bruce w..

Jay Nordlinger conducted a wide-ranging interview with Mark Steyn, who was in fine form. It was followed by a panel on liberal media bias, run by John J. Miller and featuring John Fund, Cal Thomas, S. E. Cupp, and Jonah Goldberg.

At dinner tonight, we had the pleasure of having John O’Sullivan and his wonderful wife Melissa at our table, along with Milt & Sue Bird and Lou Dombro. Milt is almost 90 and looks better than most of us will hope to look at 70; Sue, whose family escaped from Nazi Germany in 1939 (after her father spent 6 months in a concentration camp) — and who remembers the day when she found all the windows smashed in her family’s home on morning — is likewise lovely.

We’re back at sea now, headed for San Juan, Puerto Rico, where we’ll arrive tomorrow afternoon. ..bruce..

There’s a late session tonight (with James Lileks, Andew Klavan, and S. E. Cupp), but I’m frankly worn out by the steady roll of the ship (due to steady 30+ knot winds blowing from the east) and we’ve got an 8:30 snorkling excursion in the morning (we arrive at Grand Turk around 7 am). I may yet run down to listen a bit, but I’m whipped. ..bruce..