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United States of Europe

Niall Ferguson, the master of counterfactual history, has an interesting article in the WSJ on what Europe will look like in 2021 - click here.  He foresees a United States of Europe, with its capital in Vienna and the Germans very much in the driving seat.

His crystal ball gazing takes an interesting twist as follows:
"And in 2013, in a historical twist only a few die-hard Ulster Unionists had dreamt possible, the Republic of Ireland's voters opted to exchange the austerity of the U.S.E. for the prosperity of the U.K. Postsectarian Irishmen celebrated their citizenship in a Reunited Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland with the slogan: 'Better Brits Than Brussels'."

Ferguson is always provocative, but he has a better handle than most on the rise and fall of Empires and how finance is right at the centre of these movements.

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