"There can be no other criterion, no other standard than gold. Yes, gold which never changes, which can be shaped into ingots, bars, coins, which has no nationality and which is eternally and universally accepted as the unalterable fiduciary value par excellence."
Charles De Gaulle
This week, like last week, it’s all about Greece again. For more on the work and tax shy Greek lifestyle, “a poor country full of rich people”, scroll down to crooks and scoundrels corner. We open with hard working, China, a nation still struggling to raise the majority of its population’s standard of living up to an acceptable 21st century level, now proposing to bailout the Greeks, where the dead beats can retire at 50 on 95% of the state pension. Is fiat money great or what. Will Greek MPs vote for Christmas this week? Christmas for European banksters and politicians. Can premier Wen deliver on his noble words? All will be revealed later this week.
Enter the dragon 'to save the euro’
It is in the interest of cash-rich China to help resolve the eurozone debt crisis, but Chinese premier Wen Jiabao, who is visiting Britain and Continental Europe, will want a share of the West’s buying power in return .
By Malcolm Moore, in Shanghai, Peter Foster in Beijing and Andrew Cave in London
10:00PM BST 25 Jun 2011
As Wen Jiabao, the Chinese premier, stepped off his plane in Birmingham on Saturday, it was difficult to avoid the feeling that the UK, and Europe, have never looked weaker in Chinese eyes.
In private, senior Chinese diplomats are now openly scornful of Britain’s economic prospects and have even asked why Mr Wen should grace such a weak trading partner with three days of his time.
Indeed, it is telling that the first stop on Mr Wen’s tour is Longbridge, the old MG Rover car factory that passed into Chinese hands in 2005. Once a byword for poor productivity, wildcat strikes and trade union power in its British Leyland and Austin Rover days, the plant is now host to China’s biggest industrial presence in the UK. Owned by Shanghai Automobile Industry Corporation, the factory designs and assembles MG cars in the UK made from car parts manufactured in China.
However, the Longbridge site remains the only major example of Sino-British co-operation, something that the Prime Minister, David Cameron, whose advisers have helped co-ordinate the visit, is determined to change.
On Mr Cameron’s visit to China last year, a target was announced for increasing bilateral UK-China trade to $100bn by 2015, from its 2010 total of $63bn and Number 10 sources said yesterday that they believe that “progress has been made” on hitting that figure.
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