Re: Time for the UK to get out of the EU? : Fri Jun 08, 2012 12:41 pm  

It is true, though, that so unfeasibly corrupt and incompetent is the EU that auditors have point blank refused to sign off its accounts, for about the 100th year running, due to improbable gazillions being unaccounted for. The missing figure is, you may not be surprised to hear, always a blck hole, and never an unexplained huge surplus.

In ANY other organisation this would have led to a lot of extremely hefty jail terms many years ago, but for some reason, the annual refusal to sign off the accounts, which should be one of the world's biggest scandals given the money gone adrift, is almost universally ignored.

So that's alright then.

Re: Time for the UK to get out of the EU? : Fri Jun 08, 2012 1:13 pm  

Dally wrote:

... You seem to have to register to see the FT one.

Then register. I'll make a change from the comics you usually link to.

Re: Time for the UK to get out of the EU? : Fri Jun 08, 2012 1:32 pm  

I like the fact that the cityam article pulls rank by saying FA Hayek was more distinguished than Krugman, so he must be right.

I respond by saying Keynes was more distinguished than Hayek, so anything Hayek says is superceded by Keynes.

Re: Time for the UK to get out of the EU? : Fri Jun 08, 2012 1:40 pm  

Mintball wrote:

The tone of those posts went a bit 'woosh', didn't they?

Well indeed. All the corruption in the UK can quite clearly be blamed on the EU.

I wasn't taking those posts seriously, I don't even take the subjects seriously, there are pro-EU myths and there are anti-EU myths, people take their pick as they see fit.

And talking about corruption in the UK is a complete diversion tactic, it doesn't make it better, the issue is we give billions in net contribution to an organisation that is infamous for pork barrel politics, corruption and opaque financial management. If you ditch the political project you can still have many of the social and economic strands (that you may or may not agree with), because they exist outside of this particularly expensive padded box.

Re: Time for the UK to get out of the EU? : Fri Jun 08, 2012 1:52 pm  

Him wrote:

The problem is the Germans aren't propping it up, they're trying to get everyone else to prop it up. They want the benefits (better for German exports) but don't want the costs (helping out the poorer areas). The Euro would work either if it was restricted to nations of similar size economies or if (like in nations outside the Euro) the rich areas subsidise the weak. Since the Germans don't appear to want either, it won't work.

As for the EU, I'm sure there is plenty of unnecessary and wasteful expenditure, but I'm of the school that you attempt to make something better before chucking it away entirely. I don't see why those parts can't be controlled with effective leadership (that does not include btching from the sidelines with no proposals only complaints).
A big problem for the EU is that no one understands how it works. It needs simplifying and far greater transparency introduced. People are suspicious of things they don't understand. If there was greater transparency there would be greater understanding and therefore greater pressure brought to bear upon our European representatives. People barely know who their MP is but I think people at least know if theyre in a Tory or Labour constituency. Without looking, I have no idea who, or what party my regions' MEP's are from or even how many there are. And I'm at least somewhat interested in politics.

You dont need to know who your MEP is, they dont make the decisions. And better leadership is only possible if the various institutions and EU mechanisms allow for it, which they dont.

The EU has just become too big and unwieldy. But how do you simplify it? Or make it more transparent? Its easy to say that, they're motherhood and apple pie statements, but the thing's just become too complex. Unravelling it is virtually impossible because any changes that are made will have an adverse effect on at least one member state. Its got a huge level of inbuilt inertia.

The only way that they'll resolve the problems of the Euro is to move to much greater financial and political integration. But who really wants that?

Re: Time for the UK to get out of the EU? : Fri Jun 08, 2012 1:54 pm  

sally cinnamon wrote: Germany's strength comes from its high productivity, 23.7% higher than the EU average, whereas we are 7.2% higher than the EU average, Greece is 23.7% lower than the EU average, and also its export advantage being able to export quality goods at cheap price because it has an undervalued exchange rate by being in the Euro rather than the exchange rate they would have in the Deutschmark. Germany has quite good pensions, employment rights and social welfare, the right wingers often hold Germany up as a benchmark of austerity but they have achieved their high levels of productivity through strong state investment in education and infrastructure and also support for industry, it is not through cutting taxes to the rich to the lowest possible level to attract investment and having low wages and no working rights to make them competitive... http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog ... king-hours Also worth noting pay restraint amongst German workers which is behind some of that productivity. The structure of their economy is different to say the UK or the basket cases, I think it's very interesting but off on a tangent.

sally cinnamon wrote: Germany's strength comes from its high productivity, 23.7% higher than the EU average, whereas we are 7.2% higher than the EU average, Greece is 23.7% lower than the EU average, and also its export advantage being able to export quality goods at cheap price because it has an undervalued exchange rate by being in the Euro rather than the exchange rate they would have in the Deutschmark. Germany has quite good pensions, employment rights and social welfare, the right wingers often hold Germany up as a benchmark of austerity but they have achieved their high levels of productivity through strong state investment in education and infrastructure and also support for industry, it is not through cutting taxes to the rich to the lowest possible level to attract investment and having low wages and no working rights to make them competitive... http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog ... king-hours Also worth noting pay restraint amongst German workers which is behind some of that productivity. The structure of their economy is different to say the UK or the basket cases, I think it's very interesting but off on a tangent.

Re: Time for the UK to get out of the EU? : Fri Jun 08, 2012 1:55 pm  

sally cinnamon wrote:

I like the fact that the cityam article pulls rank by saying FA Hayek was more distinguished than Krugman, so he must be right.

I respond by saying Keynes was more distinguished than Hayek, so anything Hayek says is superceded by Keynes.

See my comment on the football decision thread.

Re: Time for the UK to get out of the EU? : Fri Jun 08, 2012 1:56 pm  

Him wrote:

The problem is the Germans aren't propping it up, they're trying to get everyone else to prop it up. They want the benefits (better for German exports) but don't want the costs (helping out the poorer areas). The Euro would work either if it was restricted to nations of similar size economies or if (like in nations outside the Euro) the rich areas subsidise the weak. Since the Germans don't appear to want either, it won't work. ...

It's a question of political will and the backing of the electorate.
Germany managed to drag a post-communist East Germany into the the late 20th century but I think you're right in that they won't want fiscal union with (or more bail-outs for) non-German countries whose economies are less vibrant than their own.

But let's not forget that it wasn't the basic notion of the Euro that caused the Eurozone mess.
It was down to
a) Putting a common currency ahead of fiscal union (into which fiscal union I would include the invention of Euro bonds) in the calendar of events.
b) Letting Greece into the Euro with incredibly dodgy data about the size of their deficit.
c) The banking crisis !!

i.e. We must absolutely not forget that our own quantitative easing and all the rest of it (that we have been able to do and the Greeks can't) wouldn't have been needed if the banking crisis hadn't happened.

Re: Time for the UK to get out of the EU? : Fri Jun 08, 2012 1:56 pm  

Kelvin's Ferret wrote:

Also worth noting pay restraint amongst German workers which is behind some of that productivity.
The structure of their economy is different to say the UK or the basket cases, I think it's very interesting but off on a tangent.

They don't seem to have the same income gap in Germany as we do over here, do they?

Re: Time for the UK to get out of the EU? : Fri Jun 08, 2012 2:04 pm  

El Barbudo wrote:

It's a question of political will and the backing of the electorate.
Germany managed to drag a post-communist East Germany into the the late 20th century but I think you're right in that they won't want fiscal union with (or more bail-outs for) non-German countries whose economies are less vibrant than their own.

But let's not forget that it wasn't the basic notion of the Euro that caused the Eurozone mess.
It was down to
a) Putting a common currency ahead of fiscal union (into which fiscal union I would include the invention of Euro bonds) in the calendar of events.
b) Letting Greece into the Euro with incredibly dodgy data about the size of their deficit.
c) The banking crisis !!

i.e. We must absolutely not forget that our own quantitative easing and all the rest of it (that we have been able to do and the Greeks can't) wouldn't have been needed if the banking crisis hadn't happened.

It's been obvious for years that Europeans have been living above their productive means.

a. But that's the whole point it was. The politicians knew they had no popular mandate but thought they'd steam ahead anyway. I have doubts that there is sufficient common culture to allow a political and fiscal union to succeed in any case. That would require long-term subsidies to peoples of differeing cultures and outlooks and / or mass migration from poorer to richer areas. I think it would end in bloodshed. Always have.

b. Not just Greece. Even Germany didn't meet the criteria! I think only Luxembourg did.

c. The banking crisis is a debt crisis, ultimately cause by politicians, people living above their means and in the case of fringe areas of the EU the falwed Euro project, so we go back to the start!