I'm not completely convinced it's a good idea to leave Europe

[vetran]

OBAQ

Blackadder - "It's French!" - YouTube


Common market = what the UK thought we were voting for.

Trough for failed politicians to carry on messing with our lives with impunity = what we got

[shaunbhoy]

Common market = what the UK thought we were voting for.

Trough for failed politicians to carry on messing with our lives with impunity = what we got

Oh you cynic!!! Good point though.

[DodgyAgent]

"Democratic accountability" is the least of the problems related to the EU. Different British governments have imposed on the populace policies that an overwhelming majority were against (eg, mass-immigration).

The main issue with the EU is that it tries to override the Westphalian order of 1648 based on national sovereignty of European states. The EU is a French attempt to control Europe with German financing. Period.

That project is now in complete disarray and has utterly failed. The wise thing (for any EU country) is to roll back all EU legislation pre-Maastricht Treaty. Or leave altogether.

The easiest game in town is to show anecdotal "proof" that we do not in fact live in a democracy. It may be that the "overwhelming majority" are against mass immigration and that they are likewise against many other government policies. Whatever you say the "overwhelming majority" can vote out a government that makes the wrong decisions and it can vote in a government according to to what they say and what they do. So our democracy may not be perfect but it works better than any other system.

Using a cliche to make an argument and then trying to "encase it" with the word "period" is an example of someone with a bigoted entrenched view that they cannot support by logical argument. Period

[Old Hack]

Jeez now he's repeating one of my insults from a previous thread.
All the originality of a very limited IT geek. No wonder he works in the public sector where they'll take any cretin.

You know 10% of fook all sas, nothing, rien, nada, and, as always, you're wrong.

But carry on

Keep up the mast debating, for you're clearly getting good at it you loathsome turd burglar

[DodgyAgent]

You know 10% of fook all sas,

Which makes him the most knowledgeable person on CUK

[Mich the Tester]

Which makes him the most knowledgeable person on CUK

Whoah! Not so fast Mr Agent. My CV tells me I know an awful lot about lots of things!

[DodgyAgent]

Whoah! Not so fast Mr Agent. My CV tells me I know an awful lot about lots of things!

It also says that you are good at what you do

[istvan]

I would like to return back to the original statement, with 3 and one additional point:

Long Term:
"It seems that German discipline will be applied in Europe. This may, I stress may, in the long run make it better than the US economy which is headed downward due to excessive debt and an overly unproductive financial sector just like the UK. "

I would say, German economy and its model has reached its limits. Their recent success was shortsighted.

Point-1) Its success was built on EU's expansion. With adding new countries, they were able to sell more of their goods without those countries imposing tariffs on them (free movement of goods). They gave financial loans freely to these countries because they needed to finance their consumption (how stupid), so ultimately they can "enslave themselves" (well the people only, politicians are fine).

Point-2) Also, let's not forget that when the EU currency was established the Deuch Mark was stronger then the EUR. This mean that they devaluated their own currency to boost exports. How smart! We blame China to keep their currency artificially low, yet Germany performs the biggest ploy in this century unnoticed.

Point-3) Money flowing from richer countries to poor EU countries are not going to equalize their productivity in the next few decades or so. Without the same level of productivity as in Germany, the local EUR currency should worth less as there is less production backing it up. However the EUR is the same in Germany as it is in Greece and all the other countries. This plan of introduction of single currency was a flawed plan or at least extremely premature!

4) Maybe not!? Perhaps I give Germany less credit than it is due. Perhaps it was done by design. Perhaps, they planned to subdue most of the poor countries to the east with a purpose. Utilities (water, gas, electricity, mobile, most of other big businesses, etc.) are owned by German or French companies mainly. They bough them as these countries opened up their economy to "free market". Basically, communists (now free market business man) turned around and sold everything for kick-backs. Lot's of money in off-shores by the commies. So, privatization did not improve the countries' economical status. Prices of utilities skyrocketed, "free market" - who is going to compete with them anyway...

Is this model better than the American model? America has enough land to grow in population, so they grow about 2-3% a year by natural increase in population and immigration. New customers needing housing, cars, and all the goods one can imagine. This is the driver of the economy (60-70% consumption). They also pursue "World Democracy" = "Market". Market is what all countries need. Whoever gets the market wins...

Europe has no more land - population 100 times denser then the US. So, they acquire consumers by bringing in more and more countries to the EU. With them brings trouble as well. Unless there is a political/economic federal government over Europe this model is doomed to fail. No country will want a federal government over their heads. Unless of course, the Queen will be that over the entire EU . This will never happen.

My humble opinion is that the EU in current model and form is doomed to fail.

[Mich the Tester]

It also says that you are good at what you do

It does. It always cheers me up when I look at it.

[Mich the Tester]

Actually I think that given the current situation in Europe there's never been a better opportunity for the UK to push through the real reforms that the EU needs. In that sense the EU needs the UK right now. I think the Germans realise that and will be prepared to give quite a lot in negotiation, just to try and keep the UK in. Even though there are some real federalists in German politics (and some who are anti-EU), the one thing that unites all German politicians is that they want to keep what they see as the sensible countries in. Rightly or wrongly, the UK is seen by the German establishment as one of the sensible countries, along with a few others like NL, Austria, Finland, Denmark and Sweden. Definition of sensible being 'can pay it's way in the world and pays the bills without constant harassment'.