Wednesday 12 September 2012

It's alive . . . more Obiter Dicta . . .

I took a mate of mine who recently exited one of the larger European banks into Atelier de Velo to get measured up as a riding partner. He's never been on a real racing bike so I'm lending him my BMC to try it out. I've got to say Chris at AdV did his best to make the bike bearable for my friend and I reckon when he joins me tomorrow morning it will be a small shock to the system. He's a natural athlete so he's either going to get it straight away or get frustrated with the process.

It's my second time this week watching a rider being fitted to a bike. I'm starting to understand the geometry of the process much better now and I could immediately see today that the bike was about 2 inches too long in the top tube for my mate. A racing bike is so different to a commuter or even a mountain bike as the margin for error is much smaller. Make a mistake at this stage and your rookie rider is likely to have little control and a permanent loss of confidence.

My legal training did not extend to German constitutional law, but from what I from read of todays decision from the Bundesverfassungsgerichtsee (German Constitutional Court) there are enough "buts" to stop politicians from some of the more egregious attempts of power grabbing by Brussels. There is a suggestion that the court already considers certain acts of the central bodies to transfer the debts away from their source and to a central body (ESM, ECB, etc.) and therefore Germany herself prima facie invalid. This could get very interesting if Draghi wants to push things further.

The court also seems to be saying that nation states remain the ultimate bearers of sovereignty, any move to transfer further powers to the central European government would have to be ratified by a referendum. Thereby stopping the creeping power of the ECB?

Maybe the more significant political event is the Dutch election? As a creditor country and one renown for being quite "cheap" in all things fiscal, the Netherlands certainly has some influence over the larger rump of the European nation. Voters there look likely to spurn some of the anti-immigration parties and look to the mainstream to keep them safe from Euro-armageddon.

I'm going to sleep on this one. No sense in jumping to conclusions until the politicians move to test the limits encapsulated in the obiter dicta.

Ciao!

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