Euroarmageddon Tour — last night in Paris

I did indeed crash. Probably just as well, since it appeared to have been raining durng the afternoon, which pretty much ruled out putting up the new signs, etc. Instead, once I was sufficiently conscious, Sandra and I headed down to the Christmas Market on the lower part of the Champs-Elysees, both to grab something to eat — a room service hamburger here at the hotel costs about US$30 — and to finish up some Christmas/grandkids shopping.

Once again, both the upscale retail section of the Champs-Elysees as well as the (temporary) Christmas Market section were absolutely jammed, so the Eurocrisis doesn’t seem to have damped anyone’s enthusiasm for going out. How actual sales are, I have no idea — but a lot of people in the upscale retail section were carrying purchase bags from the various stores.

True fact: the Abercrombie & Fitch store on the Champs-Elysees actually had a roped waiting line for getting in.

So, what’s my takeaway from a weekend in France? I keep thinking back to what Thomas, one of the Parisians I interviewed, said to me at the start of our conversation: it’s like running along on a flat area, and then you suddenly come to a cliff, and bam! you fall down. The image that came to me, with my own cultural heritage, was of Wiley E. Coyote, running off a cliff and actually going some ways over empty space. Then he suddenly realizes there’s nothing below him, looks to the camera, waves goodbye, and plummets to the gorund. (In fact, I think that this clip sums up Europe’s situation very well.) That is what I suspect will happen to the Eurozone, and possbly to the EU as well. ..bruce w..

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Category: Economics, Eurocrisis, France, Geopolitics, Main