In case anyone missed it, today’s Times article appears to have knocked about ten points off the market odds for approval (via Intrade).
It just goes to show that in a bear market, all news is bad news.
(Earlier posts on this topic are here and here.)
UPDATE: See Lex’s insightful comment.
The title of the article is: “French in disarray as they admit EU treaty vote is lost”. Odd. The French are the people, the public, the voters, right? If so, who are these “French” who are in disarray? The French government, its elite. They are in disarray. And “Lost” is an odd term. Is this not an expression of the public will, an excerise in democracy which should be celebrated?
Watch the “French” immediately schedule a new election to give the “French” another opportunity to not “lose” the treaty vote.
These odds show a very positive picture for a NON, also.
This will be as big a disappointment for the French elite as when what’s his name lost the Presidential election last November. Well,boo-hoo.
France and the Netherlands should re-run their referendums to obtain the “right answer” if their voters reject Europe’s constitutional treaty in imminent national ballots, Jean-Claude Juncker, the holder
of the EU presidency, said on Wednesday.”
So go ahead and bid on a YES on Intrade; even if the French vote no on Sunday, eventually your bet will be right, and Intrade will have to pay you. :-)
Mr. Nyman, read the fine print: “Contract Expiry Date May 31, 2005 “
Most entertaining is the reason given for the French non: “…French voters consider that the treaty has already given too many concessions to Britain.” Apparently EU integration is all one big zero-sum game with each player jockeying to screw the others.
And they wonder why we decline to join transnational initiatives such as the ICC.
And it’ll all be America’s fault.
Found this at EURSOC, wonder if this changes the odds?
The most colourful story in what was a busy weekend for EU news was a report that France’s floundering yes campaign is hoping that the votes of jungle tribesmen in south America will push support for the constitution over the crucial fifty percent mark.
A hang**over from its days as a colonial power, France has dominions (DOM-TOMs) dotted around the globe. Citizens of these dominions are accorded full voting status in referenda – and president Chirac is hoping that these 1.4 million votes will tip the balance in the very tight “home” referendum.
French Guyana’s Wayampi Indians make peculiar Frenchmen, but French they are. The women often give birth at ten and are grandparents in their twenties (actually, they sound more like English girls). They wear red loincloths and, rather than striking and grumbling, list hunting and gathering as their favoured pastimes.
However, like their counterparts in mainland France, they and their fellow DOM TOM Frenchmen have been on the receiving end of numerous ill-concealed bribes to ensure they continue their tradition of supporting governments in referenda. Earlier this year, students from the DOM TOMs were granted free annual air tickets to France. Banana growers in the Caribbean received a big subsidy. Copies of the constitution treaty are being shipped to all corners of the French-ruled world, in the hope that like the 1992 Maastricht vote, a couple of hundred thousand votes from citizens who have never set foot in France will edge out dissenting voices in the mother country.
—
hang
over
is an unacceptable word?????
Any thoughts on what will happen to Euro? For the NON camp, the single currency should be nothing short of an Anglo-American conspiracy. However, for the currency markets can a single currency be viable without a single political entity?
Italy’s hurting bad cos of the Euro.
And via Bros. Judd:
PRESIDENT CHIRAC of France is preparing to throw Europe into confusion and put Britain on the spot by backing moves to keep the European constitution alive if it is rejected in Sunday’s referendum.
French diplomats say that M Chirac is expected to urge other countries to proceed with ratification because France does not want to be seen to be blocking the European project. Any attempt to persuade other countries to go ahead will dash the hopes of those in the British Government who believed that a French rejection would make a British referendum unnecessary.
Sulaiman,
I believe the best construct for human development is the bordered, democratic republic. So I hope that a “Non” vote will lead to the revival of the independant republics of Europe.
Currency is one expression of a free republic, so I anticipate that each nation will want to distinguish its currency just as it does its flag. Then, as long as their currencies are freely traded on the global currency markets, the dynamic valuations that result from this exchange will stand-in for a single, contrived currency.
This will be a hard pill for the continent’s socialists and technocrats to swallow because it takes the mechanism of valuation out of their polished hands. But it will strenghen the economy of the region by eliminating the E.U.’s valuation-perverting regulations, like unenforced deficit-spending constraints, that have been forced on its component nations, and by generating real political commity on the continent that is underpinned by actual markets and locally accountable government.
This is a trying time for Europe’s social-ist elites! I’m enjoying watching them flop around like minnows on a beach.
-Steve
Steve – I find myself in agreement with you. I think it was Milton Friedman who in an interesting article in WSJ back in 1991 made the point that without labor mobility you cannot really have a single currency. However, the problem with European bordered republics is that they easily fall into protectionist (and ultimately nationalistic) political entities captured by special interest groups. Even the US states, despite what the Constitution says and the warning of Federalist Papers that closed borders are eventually crossed by bullets, have not completely avoided this pitfall. I am not too fond of a European super-state but let’s hope that the rejection of the proposed constitution does not give the extreme left and right (they are not very different from each other when it comes to economics) the upper hand.