Thread: The end of the EU?

Originally Posted by chassamui

I'm grateful to our former sponsors. We need to get out of the EU comfort zone and do what we used to be good at. Pillaging the third world.

If we burn trident and the EU we would be 100bn a year better off. Thats GBP because the Euro is dead in the water.

I don't believe that Cameron new what he was doing for one minute, but he will get all the credit for it.

hear, bloody, hear!!!

if the UK is forced out of the fluffy nest to fly free, soon enough it'll be forced to become a healthy predator nation again... a giant socialist-free tax haven prospecting, resource-grabbing, designing, innovating, manufacturing, trading, and exporting into both Europe and NAmerica. The empire only happened out of military necessity and good old-fashioned state-sponsored piracy and exploitation. Being a soft socialist shire of this neo-HolyRomanEmpire is out of character.

Originally Posted by OhOh

Gold reserves are the only real measure of strength.

Gold has no intrinsic value. A replacement for gold in artificial teeth is avalable.

The only real measure of economic strengt is the economy. Wait another two or three decades and maybe the economists will discover this too.

EU treaty: Britain is being 'left behind' ... a rickety cart drawn by pantomime horse Merkozy

The EU treaty agreement shows eurozone politicians continue to be obsessed with the symptoms, ignoring the the underlying macro problems.








EU politicians have come up with something like the discredited Stability and Growth pact with teeth, but the teeth are far from convincing.







By Roger Bootle

10:00PM GMT 11 Dec 2011

14 Comments





It was always likely that there would be another dollop of euro-fudge to wade through. We are now deep in it.


The outlines of a “solution” to the euro crisis have been clear for some time: centralised control of fiscal policy, requiring the construction of new political arrangements for both the eurozone and the EU.


In the meantime, in return for a deal setting the course for full fiscal and political union, the ECB would buy large quantities of troubled sovereign debt, preferably financed by quantitative easing. This would put paid to the idea that the euro was facing break-up and give the politicians time to work out details of a full solution.


So much for the markets’ hopes. The reality is starkly different. Last week the ECB flatly refused to step in as a large-scale buyer of troubled government bonds. It even appeared to rule out doing this by proxy through funds channelled to the IMF.


Meanwhile, the politicians have come up with another half-way house. Having rejected issuing “eurobonds”, what Chancellor Merkel and President Sarkozy now propose is not a full fiscal union but rather something like the discredited Stability and Growth pact with teeth.



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Yet the teeth are far from convincing. Suppose Greece were ordered to implement further tax increases but hardly anyone paid. What then? I suppose a huge fine of so many billion euros. But this would simply add that sum to the already huge amount of debt that the Greek state cannot possibly service or repay.

The politicians continue to be obsessed with the symptoms. There is still no attempt to deal with the eurozone’s two underlying macro problems, namely a lack of competitiveness in the periphery and slow growth of domestic demand in the core.

Without these being dealt with, what is being proposed is an austerity union. All countries are forced to go down the same deflationary route as Germany – but without the offset that Germany has enjoyed of being able to import demand from other countries via a large export surplus.

Then there is the little matter of democratic accountability – never the EU’s strong point. Enoch Powell once said there couldn’t be a European democracy because there wasn’t a European demos.

Meanwhile, how to get these proposals accepted, if not by the electorates, then at least by the governments and parliaments of 17, or in some versions, 27 countries? All this against the backdrop of a gathering economic crisis which is relentlessly increasing the scale of the financial problems, and rapidly shifting domestic political realities.

Never mind political difficulties in Greece and Italy, one half of the pantomime horse Merkozy is subject to re-election next year. Moreover, Mme Le Pen, who has been gaining on him in the opinion polls, questions France’s membership, not just of the euro, but of the EU itself.

Evidently, all those who have supported the EU in its adventures and urged further integration on us are now worried about Britain being “left behind”.

Behind what? A rickety cart drawn by a pantomime horse. The eurocracy and its allies in the Foreign Office and the economically challenged part of the commentariat still haven’t woken up to the idea that the eurozone is an area of slow growth and gross inefficiency.

The dynamic countries of Asia do not look to Europe for inspiration; they look at it in amazement and despair. Whatever it is the eurocrats are cooking up, if we are left outside it then it would be more appropriate to describe us as being left in front.

For those of us who were eurosceptic from the start, it has been a very long wait. That is not surprising because it takes time for imbalances to build up and it takes a crisis to reveal the real weaknesses of the system. Yet once events started to move they moved very quickly.

At each stage, what had been believed to give stability to the system has been brutally exposed as false. First came the shooting up of yields in Greece and other peripheral members; yet supposedly Italy and Spain were safe. Then yields there shot up. Various summits were supposed to come up with the solution but failed. Diverse regiments of the fifth cavalry were supposed to ride to the rescue: the Chinese, the ECB, the IMF. Yet, after appearing briefly, they have melted away.

The latest key development is news that, not just central banks but also industrial and commercial companies are now preparing for the break-up of the euro. Over the last couple of days I have noticed some European property that would normally be priced in euros instead being quoted in dollars.

In matters financial, confidence is all. With the euro, it is draining away by the day. We are moving rapidly towards the denouement.

Roger Bootle is managing director of Capital Economics. [email protected]

daily telegraph

The UK has a poor manufacturing base, all thanks to the Thatcher years, so it's 70% service now, which is good and bad. It's very good when things are good, it becomes very very bad when things are bad, that's because "services economy" have a large beta, that is they are highly exposed to "market risk" and the swings are felt immediately.

That's why manufacturing countries like China and Thailand have been able to weather the economic crisis more easily, their "manufacturing" base acts like an equity tranche when times are difficult. Something that the Thatcher minions took as a liability when it was instead an asset. All she wanted was a high beta for a quick economic recovery, not a lower beta for economic safety.

Originally Posted by chassamui

Originally Posted by thegent

around £12 billions

UK contribution to EU budget in 2010 EU 22.6 Billion.
The EU budget for 2010 is set at EU 126.5 Billion (from member state contributions)
The EU will spend a further EU 15 Billion from VAT and customs receipts. Total EU spending 141.5 billion.
The infamous UK rebate to offset the small size of our agricultural sector, was EU 4 billion in 2010. The nice Mr Blair agreed in 2005 that we would reduce this rebate by EU 1 billion per year from 2007 to 2013.

Originally Posted by thegent

In terms of CAP budgets Germany is actually a net contributor and France will shortly be joining them.

This is utter tosh. All countries contribute to the EU budget on the basis of GNI. The only difference as far as CAP is concerned is how the UK rebate is paid, (Germany actually pays a lesser share of this along with the Netherlands and a few others). The CAP budget is fixed as a pecentage of EU income as a whole.

Originally Posted by thegent

The EU subsidy has decreased over the recent years

Correct. In the 80's it was consuming 70% of the budget. It was reduced to 40% and now on the way up again at 47%

Youy can access all this information and more on the EU website.

If you wish to debate the issue please find a credible source for any facts or figures you quote. Otherwise wipe you chin and go away.

can't comment on all your numbers, and I assume they are all good but this is not the real issue

the real issue is cultural IMO, the UK doesn't belong to Europe, period. The UK is too "complex" and too "particular" to be close to Europe. It's closer to Canada and the USA than it is to France, Spain and Italy, and even Germany.

The UK should remains independent for its own good, and DeGaulles was right, the priority of the Brits in their mentality is to look at the sea, and we can't change that, never will.

The only reason the UK joined the EU was for commercial interests, not political. That's also why DeGaulles wanted them out, the EU long term objective was a political integration to replace an economic one, that was the original plan, to stop the German and the French fighting through economic cooperation,

This was at odds eventually with the UK objective of economic interests, the EU before anything is a political alliance using economic cooperation as an incentive.

The UK will have to face sooner or later that very difficult question, what do they want from the EU since it's clear that their long term objectives are in contradiction.

Originally Posted by Butterfly

The UK has a poor manufacturing base, all thanks to the Thatcher years, so it's 70% service now, which is good and bad. It's very good when things are good, it becomes very very bad when things are bad, that's because "services economy" have a large beta, that is they are highly exposed to "market risk" and the swings are felt immediately.

That's why manufacturing countries like China and Thailand have been able to weather the economic crisis more easily, their "manufacturing" base acts like an equity tranche when times are difficult. Something that the Thatcher minions took as a liability when it was instead an asset. All she wanted was a high beta for a quick economic recovery, not a lower beta for economic safety.

Err, only one thing wrong with your little thesis: Britain doesn't have a poor manufacturing base.

The ratio of services to industrial output is on par with any developed western economy including the USA. And I know this may be inconvenient to you and all the other would be polemicists mounting their little European hobby horses, but Britain's industrial sector exceeds that of la belle France.

The trouble with economies heavily biased towards manufacturing i.e. 50-60% is they are so dependent on fluctuations in world trade and commodity prices. Inflation that we in the West might find irksome becomes a real threat to the societies bolstering these unbalanced manufacturing biased economies and their impacts are that much more pronounced. Food and housing become quickly unaffordable and the lumpen proletariat who rarely acquire the wealth created by economic booms suffer the most. A shift to domestic consumption is the usual response but this takes time and is dependent upon the extension of credit which in turn feeds inflation and costs inevitably rise thus reducing the margins of profitability which created their economic miracles in the first place.

The ideal percentage of industrial output in any balanced economy is around the 30% mark but getting to 25 - 27% will ensure healthy sustainable growth.

Welfarism in any society needs balancing and it is in this area that Europe has become hopelessly out of kilter. If growth is not to be sacrificed then the social benefits have to be trimmed. Free health care, education, early retirement and unemployment benefit all have to be reduced.

The emerging markets all have the consequences of unfettered industrialisation to contend with and these in turn will eventually, but quite quickly in historical terms, ensure a greater global economic homogenisation.


Incidentally, Chassamui figures are skewed and represent gross contributions.

classic daily mail, but spot on.

the uk is a standalone nation, and being out of europe is like being locked out of a burning building. europe, with its petty minded bureacracy and pomposity has always had a penchant for self destruction. read your history and know the future.

'Very well, alone!'

Splendid isolation has always been Britain's default position


By Nigel Jones

Last updated at 6:00 PM on 11th December 2011


At the darkest - yet also the finest - hour in British history, in June 1940, the London Evening Standard published a drawing by its great cartoonist David Low, which, in the three word caption 'Very Well, Alone!' - starkly summed up the nation's situation. It depicted a solitary soldier, fist held aloft in heroic defiance, menaced by lashing Channel waves and a fleet of enemy bombers, isolated but still standing - alone, yet unafraid.

Low's cartoon appeared at a moment of mortal danger for Britain. Her chief ally, France, had fallen to the Blitzkrieg of a German invasion, Britain's own army had been unceremoniously swept from a continent in which Hitler strutted supreme - master of all he surveyed. The prospect before us seemed to be the unenviable choices of surrender, starvation, or subjugation to a Nazi invasion. And yet we stood alone.

In the weekend since David Cameron declined to sign the suicide note arrogantly placed before him by bumptious little Nicky Sarkozy and squat, dour Angela Merkel I have often been reminded of Low's brilliant cartoon.

As the Leftist media led by the BBC and the Guardian, for whom defiance of any EU edict is a barely comprehensible act of folly, set up a keening and a caterwauling, darkly warning that Britain faced total isolation,would lose all influence in Europe, and was setting out on a lonely path bereft of friends and neighbours, I felt like shouting: 'So what else is new?'

For the truth, obvious to anyone with a modicum of historical knowledge, is that this island nation, almost uniquely in Europe, has always gone its own way, blazed its own trail, and has not only survived, but has built over the centuries the continent's most stable Parliamentary democracy, with a culture and society based on law and justice, free trade and a free media, religious tolerance, the freedom of the individual, and the protection of citizens from arbitrary arrest and persecution by an over-weening state. All qualities which have been notably absent from most of our European neighbours who now seek to dictate to us.

King Henry VIII - albeit for selfish personal reasons - was the first British ruler to make a clean break with the way continental Europe performed. By casting loose from Rome's rule he began a tradition of English particularism that has endured to this day - to this nation's great advantage. Henry's daughter, Elizabeth I, defied the Empire-building dreams of Philip II of Spain, and her seadogs like Drake and Raleigh began our long-lasting policy of putting a spoke in the wheels of the chariots of would-be European tyrants. The scattering of Philip's invasion fleet, the Armada, in 1588 was a pivotal moment in asserting the island nation's determination to do it our way.


As the Naval historian Peter Padfield showed in his masterly book 'Maritime Supremacy and the Opening of the Western Mind' maritime powers like Britain and Holland, which depended on global trade, contact with other cultures, and the constant challenges of the ocean-going life, developed a progressive, democratic, inventive, flexible, outward-looking political mindset; whereas land-based continental empires such as France, Austria, Russia and Prussia (and their lineal descendants in the EU) tended to be reactionary, authoritarian, backward- and inward-looking.

Following Spain's failure to subdue Britain, it was the turn of France. A century of almost continuous warfare, beginning with the victories of Marlborough over the armies of Louis XIV , and ending with those of Nelson and Wellington over Napoleon, put paid to Paris's ambition of uniting Europe under its sway. For another century, the 19th, Britain, ruling the world's waves, was content to mind its business on Europe's sidelines, enjoying what the great Victorian statesman Lord Salisbury called 'splendid isolation', concentrating on getting rich with Victorian industry, and extending its empire until it ruled one quarter of the globe.

But back in little old Europe, a new power had risen: Germany. After trouncing France in one war in 1870, she tried, first under Kaiser Wilhelm II and then under the still more menacing Adolf Hitler, twice more to extend her rule over all Europe and beyond in 1914 and 1940. The result was the two catastrophic world wars - conflicts which left Europe bleeding, divided, poor, and prostrate, bereft of her colonial empires and dependent on the two new superpowers of the Soviet Union and the United States.


Unsurprisingly, the leaders of post-war western Europe wanted no more ruinous wars on their continent and decided to pool their resources and mesh their industries to make conflict between their nations impossible. It was the modest beginning of a process that has led, like a game of grandmothers' footsteps, in a series of stealthy incremental moves to today's EU - bloated, bureaucratic, statist, dictatorial, corrupt, wasteful, unweildy and utterly undemocratic.

Perhaps Britain could have corrected things had she joined the European project at the outset. But we chose our traditional posture of standing aloof until the EU's undemocratic foundations had been set in stone. Our futile attempts since then to 'liberalise' its markets have been akin to trying to build a Christopher Wren church on top of a ground floor designed by the high priest of modernist architecture, Le Corbusier.

Despite the construction of the Eurotunnel, the Channel is still wider than the Atlantic. And while Britain has exported its Parliamentary democracy around the world - to the US, Canada, Australasia and India - Europe has stagnated, stewing in its very rancid juice.

It is entirely understandable,given their history, that the nations of Europe were war weary. But when they started to construct their brave new federated world, they forgot to include the concept that we in Britain had enjoyed for so long that we complacently took it for granted: democracy.It is a stark fact that of the 27 members of today's EU, just two - Britain and Sweden - have not within living memory been either fascist, Communist or military dictatorships or occupied by foreign military powers.

Even our closest neighbour, France, has, since its first bloody revolution in 1789, endured several more revolutions, coups, civil wars, two empires, two monarchies, two foreign occupations, and no fewer than five attempts to refound its republics. And it is probably polite to draw a discreet veil over Germany's political history since it became a united nation in 1870.

Yet these two countries, with their - ahem - chequered, not to say murderous history, now have the insolence to accuse Britain of being the roadblock on the path to Europe's unity and progress. Germany's most popular newspaper, Bild even has the temerity to assert that keeping Europe's tottering, toytown currency - the Euro - afloat is 'more important than Britain'. Well, at least we know where we stand now, and what our so-called European friends and partners really think of us. In truth they hold us in hatred and contempt.


European countries, especially France, with their Jacobin, conformist, authoritarian ways have always sneered at our 'Anglo-Saxon' model. Now they seize on our free markets as the scapegoat to blame for the ongoing collapse of their misbegottten currency.

We can only shake our heads and wait for the Euro-tragedy to play itself out to its bitter end. And remember, perhaps, the words of two of our great Prime Minister who were proud to stand alone when across the Channel Europe was, as usual, collectively doing the wrong thing. William Pitt the Younger, Prime Minister when Napoleon was uniting Europe at the point of his sword, observed that England had 'saved herself by her exertions and will, I trust, save Europe by her example'. And Winston Churchill, the last man in Europe to defy a rampaging Hitler, cautioned that if asked to choose between Europe and the open sea, 'Britain would always choose the open sea.'

By that, he meant that we would remain - as we have always been - open to the wide world. Let us therefore, lift our eyes from a Europe lost in corruption, petty directives, red tape, and increasingly hysterical attempts to rescue its economy from the abyss, and once more rejoin that wider world which we have always inhabited. Our future, as our past has repeatedly shown, lies in our openness to the great big exciting world beyond little Europe.

Read Nigel Jones's RightMinds blog here


Read more: EU treaty veto: Splendid isolation has always been Britain's default position | Mail Online

Originally Posted by thegent

Incidentally, Chassamui figures are skewed and represent gross contributions

They are not 'skewed' they are as accurate as the EU stats are presented.
Had you read and understood my post, you would see that the minor imbalance is accounted for, and will shortly become irrelevant.
The fact that the EU uses smoke and mirrors to balance the books is not my fault, and neither can it be blamed on the UK.

You seem to be making the judgement that the emrging economies are following the wests failed industrial blueprint, and that is good for global homogenisation.
According to you, by following this creed, the world is destined to failure and yet, this is a good thing?

Er, is car manufacturing innovative and a specialised niche market? Is aircraft manufacture so in its infancy that you stand in awe when one flies overhead? Is the manufacture of pharmaceuticals so inexplicable that you genuflect in front of penecillin? Are we now back in the 1920s?

Plainly you have a different view of modern industrial Britain.

Simpleton.

Originally Posted by taxexile

read your history and know the future.

I am aware of the history, as usual glowingly pink and grandiose in it's Daily Mail version of xenophobia.
I am also aware of the numbing reality of most of it, having lived through the larger part of it.
I await the UK's rescue by our American allies, even though i know they will arrive late and re-write the story in more favourable terms to themselves.

I am not sure a debate about EU numbers is warranted, who knows what's real and what's reported, so it's a pointless debate because it will not reflect the truth either way

the real question is a political one IMO, what does the UK wants ? Cameron move is very controversial because he is doing something that everyone was waiting for a long time, and that's true on both sides. The French and the German will now see England for the treacherous members that they are, and the English will see this act as an act of foolish courage, like jumping out of a burning WTC on the top floor.

Do you drink a lot?

Originally Posted by thegent

The emerging markets all have the consequences of unfettered industrialisation to contend with and these in turn will eventually, but quite quickly in historical terms, ensure a greater global economic homogenisation.

This is the comment of which i was so critical. My criticism is directed at emerging markets industrialisation as described by you. i.e cheap labour and poor regulation, or in your words unfettered. I did not refer to the highly specialised UK industry of today.
Once again, you need to read and understand what i am saying, and not what you think i said.

Originally Posted by thegent

Er, is car manufacturing innovative and a specialised niche market? Is aircraft manufacture so in its infancy that you stand in awe when one flies overhead? Is the manufacture of pharmaceuticals so inexplicable that you genuflect in front of penecillin? Are we now back in the 1920s? Plainly you have a different view of modern industrial Britain. Simpleton.

Plainly i do not. Please try and read carefully so you don't embarrass yourself so spectacularly in your failed interpretation of my posts. This is about 4 times now you have got the wrong end of the stick.
Advice: Read my post in full, then read it again. Then count to ten or until you have stopped frothing at the mouth.
Then go back to sleep.

I am aware of the history, as usual glowingly pink and grandiose in it's Daily Mail version of xenophobia.

if our leaders had shown a bit more xenophobia ( and a great deal less socialism) over the past 50 years, we wouldnt find ourselves in the sorry mess we are in now.

trusting the french, the italians, the spanish and the germans. ..... how naive can you get. they would slit each others throats given half a chance, the eu is a folly in the grand french style, an attempt at multiculturalism on a gargantuan scale, it just wont work. we're human, were selfish, its every man for himself, it cant and wont change. the hardwiring was done eons ago. its self preservation at all costs. its nature. look at history, look at the bigger picture, the figures and the minuteae of the treaties mean nothing.

like jumping out of a burning WTC on the top floor.

more like refusing to enter a burning building in the first place.

Originally Posted by Butterfly

The French and the German will now see England for the treacherous members that they are, and the English will see this act as an act of foolish courage, like jumping out of a burning WTC on the top floor.

The french and the Germans have become part of a post war, monolithic, socialist dogma. I know the Germans pay for this through very high personal taxation but have no idea how the French do it.
Both countries want all member states to follow the same path. What they fail to realise is that europe is not a one size fits all, political and econimic miracle.
It seems that the only country to realise this is UK. Hence they are often the fly in the ointment when it comes to signing up for 'more europe'.
The membership is now too large and too diverse for the Franco German plans.

Originally Posted by Butterfly

I am not sure a debate about EU numbers is warranted, who knows what's real and what's reported, so it's a pointless debate because it will not reflect the truth either way

the real question is a political one IMO, what does the UK wants ? Cameron move is very controversial because he is doing something that everyone was waiting for a long time, and that's true on both sides. The French and the German will now see England for the treacherous members that they are, and the English will see this act as an act of foolish courage, like jumping out of a burning WTC on the top floor.

Maybe not. Talk is that Cameron has isolated himself but as some wag recently said - isolated like a man who failed to get on the Titanic before it sailed?

^^^^^How rude.

Evidently, you are incapable of expressing what it is you are trying to say but in truth I suspect your argument is founded on nothing other than cliche, prejudice and ignorance.

kudos to the croatians though, another poor hungry country will attempt to suckle itself at the withering eu teat come january 1st.

I wonder how many countries would look at the EU and the Euro as it stands today and say to themselves, "quick let's join that stunning example of healthy economic and political success".

Originally Posted by thegent

^^^^^How rude. Evidently, you are incapable of expressing what it is you are trying to say but in truth I suspect your argument is founded on nothing other than cliche, prejudice and ignorance.

I only do that with people who, a) deliberately misunderstand my posts or b) make intentionally stupid and vapid comments.

Now i know where i stand and you fulfill both criteria, i can ignore all your future comments.

Thank you

Originally Posted by chassamui

I wonder how many countries would look at the EU and the Euro as it stands today and say to themselves, "quick let's join that stunning example of healthy economic and political success".

Another achingly banal statement.

Given the per capita income of the average EU citizen I should imagine quite a few countries would like to join.

Originally Posted by chassamui

Both countries want all member states to follow the same path. What they fail to realise is that europe is not a one size fits all, political and econimic miracle.

absolutely, the EU is before all a French German project, the other states jumped with us after we asked them. Nobody was forced into the deal.

Originally Posted by chassamui

It seems that the only country to realise this is UK. Hence they are often the fly in the ointment when it comes to signing up for 'more europe'.

the UK is special, they are their own thing, they are the island, always been isolated and at war with the continent. They will never fit, period, no matter how flexible EU could be.

Originally Posted by chassamui

The membership is now too large and too diverse for the Franco German plans.

We over expanded, it was a huge mistake, but all those failed Eastern Europe states wanted to join in.