I’ve had a series of useful meetings in Brussels with our European friends and partners. The Capitalist Ball (sponsored by the Centre for the New Europe) was fun and a good chance to see old friends (some I hadn’t seen in 10 years) from Sweden, Belgium, France, Germany, and other countries. The Adriatic Institute‘s programs were quite interesting and led to some useful meetings with people from the European parliament.
The Capitalist Ball last night was picketed by a group of wacky communists who announced that the ball contained “Europe’s richest people.” The claim was bizarre, as the room was full of advocates of free market capitalism, but as far as I could tell, no or almost no “capitalists” at all. Everyone I met was a think tank staffer, member of a liberal youth or student group, member of parliament, staff member for a member of parliament, a professor, or a journalist. I doubt that many people in the room were “poor” (it did cost fifty euros to attend, after all), but I also didn’t meet any “rich” people, either (except in the sense that everyone in an advanced market economy is rich in comparison to people in non-market economies).
I’m off to the US shortly. No more fantastic Belgian beer for while……(except for the special bottles of Trappisten beer I was given by friends)…..