Do you want the EU to continue?

Infinite Chaos said:

Those people lied to you.

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Riight. So anyone who is pro-Brexit is a liar now? I guess reading about a number of Poles living in the UK getting beaten due to them taking jobs away form locals wasnt true either... :roll:

PoS said:

I guess reading about a number of Poles living in the UK getting beaten due to them taking jobs away form locals wasnt true either... :roll:

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I think so. Never heard of that and if it´s the same as here, it would make no sense. I´m waiting for somebody repairing stuff in my kitchen for 8 month now...
I think I have to do it on my own ;o)

PoS said:

Riight. So anyone who is pro-Brexit is a liar now? I guess reading about a number of Poles living in the UK getting beaten due to them taking jobs away form locals wasnt true either... :roll:

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If you read what YOU said and then what I said, I find it strange that you to come to the conclusion you just posted. Australia has always been an attraction to tradespeople, doctors and medical staff. Better work/life balance and sunnier weather have always been the biggest attraction for the very same people you met. Some are honest and say they want to go for the opportunity but a few often justify the decision of leaving home by lying to themselves and to others.

Looking at the stories you read, of course it has happened just as it happened in the US when Italians and then Irish moved to the US. The Chinese didn't have a brilliant first experience either. Here, many EU workers have been brought in to do jobs UK citizens won't do such as picking vegetables or fruit for minimum wage - places like Lincolnshire which overwhelmingly voted Brexit also have a lot of farming but those farmers have to rely on Eastern Europeans to work the fields.
So, now Brexit is happening, EU workers have stopped coming in the same numbers and agriculture is in trouble - and facing worse when tariffs hit.

Surrealistik said:

Ultimately though, if you have more people willing to work the same job, the end result is that, all else being equal, you have to pay less in wages and benefits to retain the same level of labour aside perhaps, from minimum wage/union established floors; that's about as indelible an economic fact as that austerity is toxic for distressed economies.




There is nothing particularly crack pot about transfers being an invaluable tool of correcting internal economic imbalances (though it is certainly not the end all-be all, nor was such claimed).

Though it is certainly true that some beneficiaries do not leverage transfers to better their condition, that is not a universal, indelible truth; this is about on par with saying that all welfare recipients are merely queens looking to cost off of govt beneficence. At their absolute worst, equalization payments prevent runaway and spiraling disparities, and do not actively pose an obstacle to recovery unlike austerity.

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And a simple look at statistics proves this to be wrong. The equalisation of payments has done nothing to improve Mississippi, Idaho, Arkansas and other poor states. While rich states grew GDP wise the last decade, the poor states stood still. Now why is that? Because there is no incentive for these backwards states to improve or correct structural problems as they get federal handouts. Why educate your population if they are helping you get handouts from the other members of the union?

And since you mentioned Greece. Greece has always been a sick country with a poor tax system. But because Greece could just devalue the Drachma, then there was no incentive to do anything about it. So they joined the Euro and suddenly devaluing was out of the question. But there was a lack of political will to deal with the structural problems so they muddied along.

And with the help of criminal American banks the Conservative government managed to hide debt from the world.

Then the **** hit the fan when the same American banks leaked the hiding of debt to get a payout from insurance companies..

Now how do you fix an economy that has clear structural problems that caused most of the issue? You of course tackle said problems but this being Greece and that they lied to the world and ECB, then the stick approach is needed more than the carrot. Like it or not in the long run, the Greek people and economy will be much better off, than had they had the ability to devalue thier currency to cover up the problems.

That's what you get from a currency like the Euro.. Italy will soon be forced to deal with its structural problems just as Spain and Portugal have and it will come out of it in a better condition.




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I dont really care one way or the other.

PoS said:

Riight. So anyone who is pro-Brexit is a liar now? I guess reading about a number of Poles living in the UK getting beaten due to them taking jobs away form locals wasnt true either... :roll:

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Anyone not a disaster capitalist, who is still pro Brexit after the fraudulent referendum, is either a moron or a xenophobic racist.

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PeteEU said:

And a simple look at statistics proves this to be wrong...

...That's what you get from a currency like the Euro.. Italy will soon be forced to deal with its structural problems just as Spain and Portugal have and it will come out of it in a better condition.

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Unsupported nonsense.

To start, austerity has been demonstrably and clearly counter productive in achieving its primary stated goals in Greece in terms of reducing the debt in real terms; despite the substantial sacrifices endured by Greece, and the obliged sell off and privatization of even profitable govt services at firesale prices, debt has actually increased in real terms; it has shrunk the economy more than it has shrunk the debt, and at great suffering and cost to the people there.

If Greece succeeds in the long run, it will be in spite of austerity taken to the extremes it has been, not because of it; aside from perhaps some Austrian quacks, no economist believes in brutal austerity of the kind seen in Greece to be a valid mode of corrective economic prescription; it flies in the face of pretty much every mainstream economic theory, and it is done in this case primarily for political rather than pragmatic reasons. Even the IMF, as neoliberal an organization as it gets and once a leading supporter of the austerity paradigm, has admitted that austerity is a counterproductive failure without basis in reality: Austerity policies do more harm than good, IMF study concludes | Business | The Guardian | Even the IMF says austerity doesn’t work. It’s the zombie idea that will not die | Phil McDuff
| Opinion | The Guardian


Second, transfer payments can absolutely work; in Canada, we have seen transfer payments decline to an all time low of 2% of GDP in 2018; this means that increasing economic parity has been achieved between member states. Moreover, they have historically served their purpose of shoring up economic weakness in distressed parts of the country; in Ontario for example, we became eligible for transfer payments for a period of time due to a downturn in manufacturing, despite rarely qualifying before. As the economy improved and diversified, with equalization payments helping us make productive investments, we are, as of 2019, no longer eligible. We didn't embrace being dubbed a 'have not province' in search of free federal hand outs; to the contrary it was a mark of shame. Newfoundland and Labrador is another such example of a province that managed to develop its way out of poverty and economic adversity, leveraging its transfer payments into energy and resource developments. Even Alberta, the province that has overall benefited least from transfer payments utilized them back in the 60s during a downturn in its economy then, after which it recovered, and may draw upon them in the future due to its present heavy economic reliance on fossil fuels and energy.

On the other hand, there are areas of Canada of enduring poverty such as Nova Scotia, PEI and New Brunswick which are poor not because the equalization payments 'disincentivize' them, one of the most ridiculous and unproven notions I've yet heard of, but because they lack the technical, industrial and resource base enjoyed by the more prosperous provinces, and the collapse of mainstay industries (like coal) that once supported their economies. So too it is with the American states you quote. It is generally easy for prosperous states and provinces to remain prosperous, and commensurately difficult for poor states to achieve prosperity; economic advantage and disadvantage tend to be self-reinforcing and compounding, particularly when you don't have a currency to be devalued, as a state/province, that can make you more competitive in terms of exports and investment.

Lord Tammerlain said:

The EU spends about 240 billion in USD on defense (the individual members of the EU.

The only real potential threat to the EU members is Russia and it is spending 68 billion, and is not likely able to spend any more, and likely will spend much less in the future.

EU Defense spending is certainly enough to defend the EU member states from potential threats to the EU, if it were collectively spent and organized (at least for major items like naval and air force

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It's not that simple and clear-cut.

Russian defense spending is much larger, and more sustainable than it seems

Defense News, is that a site from the defense ministery?

Did you read "de bello gallico"? Than you know Julius Caesar made germannic and celtic tribes much more fierce and dangerous to get the alowance and the money from Senate to fight his wars. ;o)

german hick said:

Defense News, is that a site from the defense ministery?

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It's an American print/online/TV analytical and military news source. It is not a US Government source.

Sightline Media Group also publishes Army Times, Navy Times, Air Force Times, Marine Corps Times, Federal Times, and C4ISR & Networks.

german hick said:

I want it to continue

It has many problems like any other comunity has too. So yes, it can be made better, but it gives us security (more than american troops in my opinion) and wealth. Why shall we throw that away?

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Isn`t that what NATO is for? If any European country was invaded tomorrow the European Union would have very little to do with the responce. I think whats keeping us safe is that we live in developed and stable democracies and this has been replicated in other parts of the world without eroding national sovereignty ( in South America for example).

I want it to continue.
It would be most stupid to end it.

Manc Skipper said:

Anyone not a disaster capitalist, who is still pro Brexit after the fraudulent referendum, is either a moron or a xenophobic racist.

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I agree.

As it is currently organized? No.

PeteEU said:

Germany has always controlled Europe since the end of the Roman Empire.

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Germany didn't exist before about 1870. There was a loose confederation of 20 or so Germanic states after the fall of Napoleon but it wasn't until Bismark , a Prussian leader, that a nation called Germany was created.

Grand Mal said:

Germany didn't exist before about 1870. There was a loose confederation of 20 or so Germanic states after the fall of Napoleon but it wasn't until Bismark , a Prussian leader, that a nation called Germany was created.

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I have a feeling that somehow you will be called wrong, the fascination is how he will do it.

I think he meant after 1806, when Emperor Francis II dissolved the old empire - a multinational and no German construction.

Red_Dave said:

Isn`t that what NATO is for ~

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It's tentative still but if you look at the evidence of Northern Ireland: financial security is greater than military security. The EU has overseen (possibly through its existence) prolonged peace and in the last 30-40 years particularly with bringing in former Eastern European nations we've seen peaceful conversion of formerly hostile neighbours into "the family." I accept problems remain - there always will be but that is largely what I read from "German Hick's" statement.

Grand Mal said:

Germany didn't exist before about 1870. There was a loose confederation of 20 or so Germanic states after the fall of Napoleon but it wasn't until Bismark , a Prussian leader, that a nation called Germany was created.

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"Germany" as in the area we know as Germany, has been a political and economic powerhouse for centuries and dominating western and central Europe.

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PeteEU said:

"Germany" as in the area we know as Germany, has been a political and economic powerhouse for centuries and dominating western and central Europe.

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Well it was Austria that held most of the power in central Europe until the formation of Germany. France was also quite influential as well.

Well, to follow this "digression" into European history, one of the reasons that Caesar was justifiably stabbed was for adding to the overall confusion of definition, by naming the people East of the Rhine "Germanic" (n.B. NOT "Germans"), so as to distinguish them from the "Gallic" (Gauls) West of the river.

Ever since then precision of defining has lost itself in translation into the various European languages.

Those that actually come closest to the Germanic self definition of "Deutsch" that today's people of "Deutschland" apply, being the equally "Germanic" Scandinavians with their descriptive prefix of Tysk".

The "Latins" of today hopelessly stick to totally imprecise definitions, Spanish and French actually clinging to the mistake of "Aleman" which, while describing a Germanic tribe, is about as relevant as describing the English as Saxons.

Italians, while still making the mistake of speaking of "Germania", being at least an exception in that they refer refer to "Deutsche" as "Tedesco", the next nearest thing.

"Germanic" dominance of Western and Central Europe may be ascribed, at least initially, to the rise of the Frankish empire (certainly Germanic), but seeing how two nations of today claim its most renowned leader Carolus Magnus for themselves (the French as Charlemagne and the Germans as Karl der Grosse), this makes the whole thing no less idiotic. He was as little French as he was German, seeing how neither identity even existed then.

The dominant "Deutschland" that is being referred to even today indeed did not come into being until various Germanic people were united (more by force than actual enthusiasm) under Prussian auspices in the 1870s. Even where the bric-a-brac collection of irrelevant German speaking piss-pot principalities that preceded "Deutschland" sired a greater desire among its subject for a "Deutschland", practically none of those wanted the upstart "Prussians" to form it, let alone lead it.

In conclusion of all of which the claim of "Germany" having dominated Europe ever since Rome packed its bags and left, is indeed historically as false as can be.

if anyone asks what has the EU done for Europe ... it has brought peace to europe instead of countries fighting each other we are working together ... i would likle to see more economical help given to Eastern european nations to help people in countries like romania to have a much better lifestyle poverty and poor living standards in these countries are the norm

Infinite Chaos said:

It's tentative still but if you look at the evidence of Northern Ireland: financial security is greater than military security. The EU has overseen (possibly through its existence) prolonged peace and in the last 30-40 years particularly with bringing in former Eastern European nations we've seen peaceful conversion of formerly hostile neighbours into "the family." I accept problems remain - there always will be but that is largely what I read from "German Hick's" statement.

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You could also say that the existence of colour tv has "overseen" a period of unprecedented peace but in both cases one would need to provide evidence for any kind of causal relationship.

Red_Dave said:

You could also say ~

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Oh dear....

Godric1970 said:

if anyone asks what has the EU done for Europe ... it has brought peace to europe instead of countries fighting each other we are working together ... i would likle to see more economical help given to Eastern european nations to help people in countries like romania to have a much better lifestyle poverty and poor living standards in these countries are the norm

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It's pretty self evident with the main European countries working together towards a common cause and mutual self improvement.