E.U: Leave or Stay? Your thoughts.

This is what happens when you have compromised politicians in office, sadly.

 

The hardware can travel safely through the tunnel being cuddled by some migrant/refugee/vagrant/hobo/nomad

 

Er, what? I don't follow youtube links but I googled "The Private Central Bank" and found site going on about "The Jews".

 

wrong thread but i honestly don't know.

 

As ever, Nexxo here nails it for me:

Hopefully this embed works here:



Don't listen to the media, do your own research, and educate yourself. That's all I ask in this debate.

If I thought I could afford it I would be gone without a second thought. Leaving the family and friends would be hard work, but in the last decade or so I have been utterly appalled by this country. I am even more appalled that we, the public, have allowed it to get like this and that we continue to vote these people in to power.

This is our government:



This is the group of "people" to whom we entrust our country; we trust them to run our public services, look after our economy, take care of our sick and elderly, and this is how they act.

Why are you not angry about this? How can you sit there and not give a s---? How can you allow yourself to be so gleefully led by these "people" and their multi- billionaire/millionaire chums to the point that you can't even see it when they contradict themselves or their lies are called out?

You are the product of six million years of evolution. You are capable of rational thought. Embrace it and educate yourself.

 

Personally, I think the EU project is doomed to fail. Monetary union will never work fairly without fiscal union, and that requires surrender of individual fiscal sovereignty by the Eurozone member states. i.e. something that will NEVER happen.

However, I do believe we need a voice in Europe for as long as we want to be a serious trading partner, but our current cost of membership is too bloody high - the UK is one of the biggest contributors to the EU bailout fund.

I don't think we can afford to be completely on the outside but I'm not thrilled about the idea of closer ties.

I think what I'm trying to say is that I'm *cautiously* in favour of remaining a part of the EU, without further surrender of our own sovereignty; but don't take that as any kind of support for the Tory Boys. I'd almost like a no vote, just to piss in David Cameron's morning tea.

 

It's very unlikely to be the last referendum on the issue if we vote leave, the EU has a habit of rerunning referendums until it gets the "right" vote. Obviously giving more away each time...

Might be an idea to have a straw poll on here closer to date.

 

Yeah I agree, but one group of mostly unelected useless multi- billionaire/millionaire chums at a time.

#back on the EU topic#

The last time we voted believing we were joining a trading club, but the politicians never mentioned it's all about a superstate and being ruled by Brussels.

Tell me why I should trust any of them now?

Knowing that all of our special measures can be overruled by the EU commission at any time, and that the main goal of "the European Project" is a "Greater Europe" and (baring any EU brake up event) it will happen. Do we want to conceed our national parliments powers to a Central European Government? One group of multi- billionaire/millionaire chums to rule them all.

Do I trust our "glorious leaders"... err no.
Do I trust our "european partners"... err no.

Personnally getting out of europe removes their "it's an EU rule" excuse, and then at least we can hold them directly responsable for their actions.

I am all for reforming our voting system and our "govern-mental" system, and when enough people agree it will happen.

 

I have to agree that I cannot see the German electorate (and for that matter others) agreeing a blank cheque to write off and subsidise "southern" Europe. Nor can I see those indebted states agreeing to austerity forever so something will have to give. Mind you for the moment neither side can really face the consequences of a breakup so kicking the can is the main strategy. As an aside I'll point out that if Britain had go into monetary union at the start, they would thing would have broken apart by now as it would have added a Italy-sized economy with a worse budget deficit that Greece!

Please check your sources on this one. Afaik we did contribute under Brown but stopeed that after 2010. However we do have some liabliity through the EU budget (4th largest share of budget contributions after Germany, France and Italy) and through the IMF. We also helped Ireland with a Bilateral loan.

This isn't a party issue, though I think the liberals are all pro-eu, there is always an anti-eu minority in Labour. Corbyn is formal pro-EU but has an affinity with populist-left anti-austerity parties like Syriza, Podemos, Sinn Fein etc which tend to be against most of what the EU is doing in practice, if not principal.

We all have to look to the least worst outcome, and part of the problem is that we really don't know what a Leave vote means yet.

 

Correct outcome, largely incorrect analysis and rough stats as to how or why the eurozone would be in a worse mess with the UK. I find the government debt/deficit focus in the topic of the eurozone crisis and general discussion of macroeconomic policy disheartening to put it mildly.

In the eurozone it was all about Optimal currency areas

Just as an aside Mundell published the above paper in 1961! Its amazing how the idealism of the euro project consistently seems to trump sticking to the rules. The Maastricht treaty used only about a third of the condition in OCA theory and even bent the rules on them, all to get their shared currency.

The Eurozone crisis has laid bare the ineptitude, the self interest and convenient thinking that characterises the EU. The actions of nations within the EU over this time changed my opinion from a stay, to a stay to reform, to a leave. Because its clear the institution is beyond saving, even a massive existential crisis can't kick the EU into action.

refutation of debt as an issue:
The OECD data says the UK deficit was 10% of GDP and Greece 11% in 2011 the closest the UK deficit has been to Greece's since the inception of the euro

Even if the UK budget deficit had been larger than Greece's during the recession (mostly because of how exposed we were because of a large financial sector) it would make no difference to the severity of the euro crises.

The starting point for our Gross* national debt at that time was 56% in the UK vs 113% in Greece in 2007 before the financial crash the level of government debt was around the same as France by 2012. However that is a gross figure of government debt that includes the financial sector bailout which was largest in the UK out of all the EU countries and which involves the government owning assets that will be sold.

The real problem of the Euro:
The main problem of the Eurozone crisis is productivity differentials between the euro centre and euro periphery. UK productivity is closer to that of those in the centre than the PIIGS, also the size of the UK economy is a beneficial characteristic in this situation (the UK being an economy around 28% larger than italy in 2001 and 37% larger by 2014 btw). The main issue being the drying up of capital flows from the euro centre to the euro periphery to finance the current account deficits of the periphery.

The euro-zone crisis wasn't just a crisis of national debt it was a fundamental problem of misalignment between different economy's productivity. Spain were the "good boys", they ran surpluses for several years leading up to the financial crisis and reduced national debt in every year from 1998 until 2007. Those current account surpluses from the centre still had to go somewhere through capital flows to less competitive countries, Spain was bloated by private debt instead of public debt (obviously people and companies default and go bankrupt, Greece didn't have that option because the French and Germans would rather afflict the Greeks than bail out their own banks.) Also due to basic mathematical identities the less a government in a country with a current account deficit borrows, the more the private sector borrows.

The solutions to the euro crisis:

Long term:
Fiscal integration, centralisation and standardisation of at least the automatic stabilisers of state budgets to something like US levels of federalisation
Centralisation of state debts with lender of last resort guarantee from ECB

Short term:
German inflation and fiscal expansion to ease the competitive adjustment on the euro periphery
Probably a higher inflation target to reflect a permanent expansion in monetary policy (but that's probably needed everywhere)

Why the UK would have made this situation even more ****ed up:

While the UK joining the Euro may have increased the value of the currency we would be trading 1 for 1 in units against every member of the EU while the pound is a consistently "strong" currency giving us a large competitive advantage in the EU compared to where we are now.

Meaning that we'd be firmly in Germany's camp in this situation as far as resisting solutions would be.

It would be as much in our (blinkered) interest as with the rest of the euro centre to inflict all the costs (unemployment, fiscal consolidation, de(low)flation and stagnation) of structural adjustment on the periphery.

It would be in our interest not to pay for EU wide automatic stabilisers and debt guarantees.

It would be in our (blinkered) interest to suppress domestic inflation to maintain a competitive advantage as Germany has done.

On balance I believe that in the Euro we would just bring more strength to the Euro centre in the current power imbalance that is the main danger to the future of the Euro.

https://data.oecd.org/gga/general-government-debt.htm
https://data.oecd.org/gga/general-government-deficit.htm#indicator-chart
Mundell : Optimal currency area

 

@Disequilibria

My thoughts were that if the UK had been in, then the sovereign rating would have come under severe pressure as the national debt would be euro-denominated. A falling sovereign rating would have caused trouble for financial institutions and if the EU had then to take responsibility with a huge bank problem in London, teh issue couldn't just be kicked along and messed about with as with Greece and the others.

 

Had a conversation with a work colleague - who moved to the UK in 2007 from Romania.

His opinion? we should leave. As someone who had to apply for permits to work here , who`s wife was wanted and he wasn't , who now work s 40+ hour week (and is counting the days till he can qualify for dual nationality) - he doesn't like those who followed since 2014 and are work shy. His wife see`s the strain on the NHS (she is a qualified and experienced nurse) from those who arrive with zero language skills , who don't bother at all trying to `fit in`. This isn't the first time I have had such a similar conversation , 10 years ago I was chatting with a friend who is polish - and she said pretty much the same thing back then of the poles ; those who jumped through all the hoops since the 1990`s to move worked hard , whereas those who came after - well you get the idea.

btw in Romania - if you work for 2 years and lose your job you get 1 year of government support ; don't work and pay taxes at all? you get nothing, child benefit is 1/4 of the UK or gemany rate and they get no tax credits;


1 last thing - he said the largest retailer is German owned - food costs are near double the UK yet wages are 1/2 of what a GA who works in a supermarket gets. He said I should go on holiday to Sibui this summer with my family - the flight will cost more than everything else , even on my not so great wages.

 

I will be voting to stay.

Nexxo hits many nails on the head, but I also think we will cripple our trade by leaving. We will have to erecting new barriers to trade, charging new taxes and import duties to send something over the channel, removing free trade. It's going to cost a piddling fortune to do this, and drop out already dodgy exports. We lose 4bn on paying for the EU, but we'll lose more than that if we go out.

Leaving the EU is a media fed knee jerk reaction to immigration and a perceived loss of control. Frankly the Tories can **** this country in or out of the EU, but maybe the EU can stop some of it.

 

I find it hilarious that you're able to state things so black and white. The EU has done nothing good? Literally nothing? Yeah right.

 

Why do you want to continue to be a slave to the Private Central Bank? You are handing your freedoms and life over to the Mega Corporations. Why would you do that, why would anyone do that!

 

Please state what you are on about. What is "the Private Central Bank"? Please illustrate with links to reliable websites that are not on about Jewish conspiracies and so on.

 

Indeed. There's good stuff, bad stuff and stuff that is beign doen badly there they we would do badly ourselves as well. At the end of the day you can send politicians and civil servants to Brussels but don't expect them to gain better judgement and competence on the flight.

 

Do not personally care either way, but we have already been informed that as 90% of our business is derived from the EU a vote to leave is a vote to be sacked. Blackmail is good ya.

If you think of the company's that will do that and the civil service you will have 10% of the vote to stay in just civil servants. Company's like Defra who's entire business is EU based.

A leave vote will need to attract a lot of votes.

If your working in a big company your going to get blackmailed to vote to stay whether you want to or not.

 

I am talking about the people who are printing and issuing the currency. They are printing money interest based and lending it to our Government. All governments have the power to print and issue their own currency, interest free. Yet for some reason we are all signed on to this system that is making billions, if not trillions in profit for a small group of individuals.

I don't know anything of conspiracies and have no interest in the persuasion of any particular group. Nor do I have power over what you are surfing.

 

Um? what? In England banknotes are issued by the bank of England, though seven other banks in Scotland and Northern Ireland issue notes under the supervision of the Bank of England http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/pages/about/scottish_northernireland.aspx English notes are printed by De La Rue plc at the moment.

No private individuals involved there and anything else of your nonsense.

EDIT: And what on earth is "the Private Central Bank"?