Thread: The end of the EU?

The euro was always going to fail wasn't it, thats why we never joined.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

if the rest want Merkozy spanking them every time they are naughty, they are welcome to it.

German Chancellor Merkel is trying to bully all Euro countries into financial responsibility or else support of the failing Euro countries will stop. She is alone in this really and somehow got Sarkozy to go along. Before it was always the other way around. Sarkozy used to set the agenda and Merkel followed.

The funny part came from the polish PM. Poland is the one country most wary of german domination. Now however he said he is less afraid of german domination than of german inaction, meaning he supports Germany in imposing financial responsibility. It can't get more strange than that.

But Merkel is really alone in this. Even the german opposition is in favor of printing money to alleviate the crisis.

Originally Posted by Warrior

@ HB: The quality of your input is poor. "stupid cow", "squareheads"", "frogs", "dwarf", "fat kraut slag"... I just fail to see how this add to the discussion in a constructive way.
Where does all your anger come from?

A bunch of European c*nts that Britons did not elect trying to tell them how to run their own country.

Fuck that for a game of soldiers.

In all seriousness though, I think the average man on the street will suffer as a result of UK vetoing Europe. Only the rich shall benefit. On the face of it, I see us going back to Dickensian times if we`re not careful.

I have no problem with Germanic countries, but, those damn French can fuk right off. Perhaps we should table our own Britannic/Germanic proposal, with France as our dog.

Just imagen that Britain was just about to join the EU, would they?
It would be like marrying into a Thai family.
On the other hand Greece joining now would be like a poor girl from Issan marrying a farang.

Originally Posted by Warrior

@ HB: The quality of your input is poor. "stupid cow", "squareheads"", "frogs", "dwarf", "fat kraut slag"... I just fail to see how this add to the discussion in a constructive way.
Where does all your anger come from?

I think I like our new member Warrior

What happens in Europe doesn't stay in Europe

What happens in Europe doesn't stay in Europe - Opinion - Al Jazeera English

The debt crisis in the eurozone is far from 'just a European affair', author says.
Danny Schechter Last Modified: 09 Dec 2011 11:02

New York, New York - Some years back, the Comedy Channel featured a map illustrating how most Americans see the world. The biggest part of it was pictured as "US"; the rest of the world was shown as "THEM".

This may be true of public understanding - in part, because of the way our media works or doesn't work - but it's not true of the way our government operates as an often stealth force in global affairs.

For many, the crisis in Europe resembles the saying "What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas" - they see it as a clash of countries rather than currencies or interests, ignoring America's omnipresent financial presence and role in a number of Europe's problems that were undeniably made worse by irresponsible spending on every level.

In fact, it was American firms and banks that shovelled many of the loans into European countries that they are struggling to pay back. It was they who encouraged Europe's banks to take on much of the very debt that they are now complaining about.

American companies also encouraged Europe's financial institutions to invest in fraudulent subprime loans and derivatives that cost them billions.

That's why some on the Continent were blaming the US for exporting a type of "financial AIDS", or likening the economic collapse to financial terrorism. Now that so many of these deals collapsed, plunging Europe into crisis, the US is working in a shadowy manner to put "Humpty Dumpty" back together.

As the Washington Post reports:

"Senior US officials are playing a behind-the-scenes role in efforts to contain the European debt crisis, cajoling the region's leaders to take more steps to calm markets and trying to mediate among European governments with competing interests.

"US officials have served at times as a quiet intermediary between European political leaders and the powerful European Central Bank, which tries to stay out of the political fray. In particular, according to US officials, Americans have passed along information about how much money European governments might be willing to contribute to a rescue fund, a crucial question for the central bank as it considers its actions."

It is not just the government that is meddling here, but also the powerful Federal Reserve Bank, which many Europeans think of as a government institution when it is actually run by privately-held US banks and operates in their interest. (It too operates secretly, but was just forced to reveal that it loaned a whopping $17.7tr in 2008 to save many banks, some of which were in Europe.)

The Post reveals:

"…top Federal Reserve officials, including Chairman Ben S Bernanke and New York Fed chief Bill Dudley, along with counterparts at the Bank of England, initiated talks over how to prevent Europe's debt problems from spiralling into a global banking crisis, the officials said. The discussions culminated in a Thanksgiving morning conference call among the world's leading central bankers during which they agreed to announce joint action to ensure that banks around the world, and especially in Europe, have access to dollars at cheap rates."

So while Americans were sitting down for their turkey dinners, US bankers were talking turkey with their counterparts in Europe, telling them what to do as covertly as possible. That's why this Thanksgiving encounter went largely unreported.

American politicians have try to play crisis manager too. As far as we known, President Obama has made nine calls to European leaders that we know about using his bully pulpit to strong arm them.

"I'm spending an awful lot of time making transatlantic calls", he disclosed at a New York fundraiser.

In addition, US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has been meeting regularly with European Central bankers in Basel, Switzerland, and elsewhere. He has been burning up the phone lines too, lobbying for US-backed policies. He has now been sent on a tour of five European countries, while his underlings press the flesh and US ambassadors join an on-the-ground TEAM USA to lobby local politicians.

What's behind this full court press?

It's simple: What happens in Europe today will impact what happens in the US tomorrow.

full article at link above

Europe sovereign debt is the subprime of the US from a few years earlier

European monetary Union was always a Franco German bribe to federalise the EU. If it was regulated, audited and run by elected officials, it might have worked.

^ Ah the irony. Especially if you remember what happened to those that remained.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

The stupid cow would be right, except if it doesn't apply to other markets, it's pointless.

Basically Britain doesn't need to be told what to do by the squareheads and the frogs, if the rest want Merkozy spanking them every time they are naughty, they are welcome to it.

As far as I'm concerned the gallic dwarf and the fat kraut slag can take a running jump.

The Mouse that roared !!!

Who needs "little Britain"

What does England or Little Britain have to offer ? (besides hooligans)

Your Rolls Royce can't make it arround the corner without a polish mechanic.

As far as I'm concerned the Brits have nothing.... and I mean nothing at all.... to offer.

....o.k. .......sorry.......... you guys still make great music....but that's it. Sorry

Harry! You are the best proof ! Go have a drink and reminisce

Originally Posted by HermantheGerman

As far as I'm concerned the Brits have nothing.... and I mean nothing at all.... to offer.

The largest aerospace industry outside the US (and the most advanced), the cutting edge of the motor industry, pharma, design and plenty of other technology. Sadly, the UK doesn't own the most of the major brands any more, but the lower profile companies are still world leaders whether the great unwashed of Europe know it or not. Put it this way; Airbus wouldn't exist without the UK part of it, or if it did, it'd be on par with the likes of ATR.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

We'll sit back and watch while the average hard working German pays all his taxes to bail out Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal, eh? And let's not forget the Frenchies, to think you once owned them.

Did you burp or actually say something.

Good luck to the book burners and the rest of Europe we'll be fine thanks .

Originally Posted by Marmite the Dog

Originally Posted by HermantheGerman

As far as I'm concerned the Brits have nothing.... and I mean nothing at all.... to offer.

...the cutting edge of the motor industry

You mean the lawn mower ?

Originally Posted by Marmite the Dog

Originally Posted by HermantheGerman

As far as I'm concerned the Brits have nothing.... and I mean nothing at all.... to offer.

The largest aerospace industry outside the US (and the most advanced), the cutting edge of the motor industry, pharma, design and plenty of other technology. Sadly, the UK doesn't own the most of the major brands any more, but the lower profile companies are still world leaders whether the great unwashed of Europe know it or not. Put it this way; Airbus wouldn't exist without the UK part of it, or if it did, it'd be on par with the likes of ATR.

True.

Originally Posted by Butterfly

I really don't understand what the UK is doing in the EU

Neither do most of us... it's only a few MPs, retired middle-class alcoholics, and journalists that want to keep us in.

We'll have to go back to join those other lonely failed economies, Norway and Switzerland in EFTA, ah well...

Originally Posted by CaptainNemo

Originally Posted by Butterfly

I really don't understand what the UK is doing in the EU

Neither do most of us... it's only a few MPs, retired middle-class alcoholics, and journalists that want to keep us in.

We'll have to go back to join those other lonely failed economies, Norway and Switzerland in EFTA, ah well...

I don't think Krone and Franc want to be Pounded

Originally Posted by Butterfly

Merkozy is dreaming, it was a losing battle from the beginning

between the treacherous British (which we should kick out of the EU for good measure) and the dodgy members (PIGS), it was too ambitious to achieve

by stirring the pot to fix things, Merkozy is actually stirring the shit and making the market nervous

Poor Butterfly. Talk about not being able to see the wood for the trees.

The euro, as I said for over the past 4 years, is a construct of European socialism and could never sustain itself without a bank of last resort. Now the chickens have come home to roost Germany has to decide whether it will fulfill that role.

The Merkozy condominium might save France's bacon but it will do nothing in the long term for either the euro or the EU and imposing so called legal debt brakes and daft morality taxes on a free economy won't alter its path to stagnation - those brakes were already in place over the past 7 years but they faded at the first application and will do so again when it suits the purpose of either of Sarkozy's or Merkel's successors.

And that's the rub. The European model is entrenched in old prejudices that has always abhorred the free market, now epitomised by Britain. It's quite natural that Cameron and Britain were portrayed as the nigger in the woodpile since it will always appeal to any European politician steeped in socialist principles.

It's not for nothing that near 300,000 French prefer to live and work in Britain rather than that faux communist peasant country the other side of the ENGLISH channel.

Get over it Butterfly.

Never, in the history of this island, has the fact that Belgium is 30 miles away mattered less


By Douglas Carswell
Last updated at 11:28 PM on 10th December 2011

At last a British Prime Minister has done it. Finally, a leader has been prepared to put the national interest first and say 'no'. The taboo has been broken. David Cameron's refusal to sign us up to any new European treaty could have profound consequences.

It leaves the rest of Euroland free to forge ahead on fiscal fusion – a common tax policy, single economic policy, and ultimately a single government. As early as March, most of the new Euroland's laws will be made in Brussels and economic rules in Frankfurt.

But Britain need no longer be part of it. Instead of Britain leaving the European Union, this week's events raise the intriguing possibility that the rest of Europe might quit instead – leaving us bound together by a trade arrangement, and not much else.


'But we'll be isolated!' howl the Europhiles. Predictably, the BBC has spent the past couple of days grimly warning that Britain is now heading for the sidelines.

The same clownish commentators who a decade ago told us that we were 'little Englanders' for not wanting to join the euro have taken to the airwaves to say much the same again. There is, insist the advocates for everything European, a danger that we will be shut out, cast adrift in a hostile, friendless world.



Listening to such claims, I wonder how the Europhiles imagine that this country ever rose to global prominence in the first place? It was precisely when our leaders started to say 'no' to entanglement in endless European imbroglios that this small island off the north-west coast of Europe became a global economic and commercial powerhouse. Far from being fearful of detaching ourselves from Europe, doing so might allow us to resume the role we successfully played for centuries.

Almost 500 years ago, Henry VIII was even more intransigent in his European negotiations than David Cameron. He did not just take on the leader of France, and the then grand continental elites. He repudiated the entire idea of Papal supremacy. The breach that followed was not simply a matter of theology – or of his trouble with wives. It helped set us apart from Europe and many of Europe's titanic power struggles in the years that followed.

In the 17th Century, Stuart monarchs tried to align themselves – and the rest of us – to Europe again. We got drawn back into continental power politics – even bailing out several of the king's continental cronies.

Perhaps, like the Europhile elite who today insist we bail out the eurozone, the Stuarts felt more in common with the princely rulers of Europe than their own people who they left to pick up the tab. When Charles I lost his head, he was executed by those suspicious not only of the king and his Europhile courtiers.
Cromwell and the Parliamentarians – like the great mass of British voters today – were instinctively distrustful of continental entanglements. They felt they had more in common with East Anglian settlers living in the New World than with the French or the Dutch in the Old.

By the mid 17th Century, we were well on our way to being more than merely European. We planted colonies across the world: America, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. When the wealth created by trade with these colonies sparked the industrial revolution, we found many of our greatest markets in India, China and south America – not just in Europe.

Far from being 'little Englanders', by the end of the 19th Century we were trading with the whole planet.

When Europhiles claim that it is Britain's historic role to join the eurozone, they have presumably never heard of its precursor, the Napoleonic Continental System?
Like the eurozone, the Continental System was a single market, protected by high tariff walls designed to keep out cheaper imports. Like the eurozone, it was doomed to fail precisely because the longer its members remained part of it, the longer they were cut off from global trade and prosperity being created elsewhere on the planet.
The single European currency is just the latest in a long line of attempts by European elites to arrange the affairs of the Continent by grand design – from Napoleon's France to Kaiser Bill's Germany and beyond.

What is remarkable is not that David Cameron should find himself reverting to the traditional British detachment. Rather it is that it should have taken Britain's political leaders so long to have reached this position 40 years after we made the historic mistake of joining the Common Market.

When Britain joined what became the European Union in the early Seventies, it accounted for 36 per cent of global GDP. It has been downhill ever since. By 2020, what we joined will account for 15 per cent.

Far from being a member of the world's most dynamic trade bloc, we have shackled ourselves to a corpse. While the euro club has been in decline, the world on which we turned our back has prospered.

In the past decade alone, China's economy has expanded by more than 140 per cent, India's and Brazil's by more than 70. The fastest rising economic indices in Europe, meanwhile, are likely to be those for debt and inflation.

Advocates of closer British integration into Europe often like to point out that we still do more trade with Belgium, than with China, India and Brazil combined.
'Britain always chose the open sea': General Charles de Gaulle was right

That is precisely the problem. Outside the moribund West, the world is witnessing an explosion of wealth creation. Indeed, the economic take-off in China, India, Mexico, Brazil and east Asia today is perhaps without any precedent in human history. We could be part of it if we would only detach ourselves from sclerotic Euroland.

Far from taking a step into the dark, we would be rejoining old friends. Britain could once again take her rightful place as part of the global Anglosphere – that sprawling collection of English-speaking countries, with which we already have much in common; Australia, Singapore, India, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, the United States.

Britain has a long history of independence from Europe. Indeed, we have been at our happiest and most successful as a people when we have stood apart from a continent of grand power politics and grand designs, and instead joined in with the whole world.

If, in the age of steam trains and sail boats, we were able to forge such close links with millions of people around the planet, think of the possibilities in the age of the internet.

Never has geographic proximity been less important when determining economic success. Thanks to broadband and Skype, competition and markets located half a world away is a mouse click away. The fact the Belgian coastline is a mere 30 miles away has never seemed so unimportant.

I leave the last word to a Frenchman. When General de Gaulle vetoed Britain's application to join the European project, he declared that it was because when forced to choose between Europe and the open ocean, Britain always chose the open seas. He was right – and perhaps he understood our history better than we do ourselves.



Read more: Never, in the history of this island, has the fact that Belgium is 30 miles away mattered less | Mail Online

Originally Posted by HermantheGerman

What does England or Little Britain have to offer ? (besides hooligans)

Quite a lot and our industrial sector exceeds that of France, and is on par with the US as a proportion of GDP.

60% of our manufacturing output is exported to the EU so I suppose we seem to have rather more to offer than you may have imagined.

But then, being a Kraut you probably prefer propaganda to facts. We quite understand and recognise another bout of therapy might be in order.

Your grasp of economics seems somewhat tenuous.

Germany wouldn't have a problem at all leaving the euro and in truth the rest might survive the better in the long run.

Britain is not on its arse but certainly benefit dependency represents a fiscal drag more pronounced now however that will reduce when the recovery gains strength.