strange times make strange bedfellows

One of the reasons (Icons passim) that I voted to leave the EU was that I believed "that the ECB's position over the terms for a Greek bailout made it a proxy for a German extortion racket."

From the FT yesterday:

Trump’s top trade adviser accuses Germany of currency exploitation

Berlin is using a ‘grossly undervalued’ euro to gain advantage over trading partners, says Navarro.

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard elaborates in the Torygraph this morning; Trump is right: Germany is running an illegal currency racket.

As a matter of strict objective fact, Donald Trump’s trade guru is correct. Germany is the planet’s ultimate currency manipulator.

The implicit Deutsche Mark is indeed “grossly undervalued” The warped mechanism of monetary union allows Germany to lock in a permanent ‘beggar-thy-neighbour’ trade advantage over Southern Europe, inflicting mass unemployment on the victim countries and blighting their futures.

Looks like I'll be eating alone in the bien pensant canteen at lunchtime again.