The Deflation Bogeyman

Keeps away the bogeyman.

And best of all, Dufion, the bogeyman.

And, Tom, if I went with you up hill and down dale... he would haunt me like a bogeyman.

Hezbollah s patrons in Iran, like the party itself, realize that the consequences would be disastrous. Iran would find itself the bogeyman of the Arab world s Sunnis, while Hezbollah could be swallowed up by another debilitating Lebanese civil war.

Never mind that most of the crises could have been avoided, or late least substantially mitigated, if governments had let their currencies float against the dollar, rather than adopting rigid exchange rate pegs. Instead, the bogeyman of financial globalization is used as an excuse for continuing to coddle inefficient and monopolistic domestic financial systems.

The problem is that many Europeans regard the EU as either a dispenser of benefits, a bogeyman, or an albatross not something to which they are obliged in any way. As the financial crisis has dragged on, and recriminations among member countries have weakened the sense of community that forms the EU s foundations, the refugee challenge has exacerbated a dangerous divisiveness.

During the referendum campaign in France preceding the vote on the draft EU Constitutional Treaty, the proposed directive was vilified as undermining the rights of labor, symbolized by that dreaded bogeyman, the Polish plumber. These attacks overlooked the fact that the directive makes employment conditions of workers from other EU member states subject in most respects to host country rules.