E.U: Leave or Stay? Your thoughts.

Ah yes, Yanis Varoufakis, wasn't he a committed Remainer?

 

and confused Marxist... your point being.

 

To be fair those aren't really traps, in the same way as your bank ignoring requests to extend yet more credit to you after you've agreed to abide to the terms of the last 2-3 extensions isn't a trap, that's not to say it's right but when you sign up to a loan the lender tends to hold all the cards.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be.

 

A bit off topic really as it is just talking about how negotiating with the EU is.
(Only in the eurozone (much like the eurozone is the only currency that doesn't have a proper lender of last resort, among other issues). Usually when a developed state's government threatens default it is the government that holds most the cards, in the eurozone this works in reverse. If greece had just been able to default then most of the deficit would have been wiped with no interest to pay and a much smaller adjustment in government cuts. Obviously no one would lend to them again, mind you they have gone bust about 5 times, beware of greeks and all. The eurozone will intrinsically cause these debt crises and if they want the thing to survive then they're going to have to share the burden of competitive readjustment more equitably and realistically.)

 

Let's not attach too much value to the words of a confused Marxist, then.

Yeah, isn't it terrible when the other party has its **** together more than you do? Still, can always resort to the same old strategy of blaming the EU.

 

(it's code for not a real marxist) It is how the EU behaved regardless.

Or maybe it's just a photo that rubs your biases the right way.

 

Personally i think it says more about Greece than how the EU negotiate things, Greece had been taking the mickey for years and the EU (IMO) just ran out of patience, like i said that doesn't mean i agree with how the EU dealt with Greece but when i put myself in their position i totally understand it.

It's like one of those TV show that follow high court enforcement officers and the debtor kicks up a stink because the person they own money to want their money back one way or another, they've probably been given umpteen chances to settle their debt and instead choose to argue or not pay up.

Re: The Euro (currency), again personally i think it's a good idea but like a lot of good ideas it was badly implemented.

 

If they had a proper central bank that acted as a lender of last resort and considering the depression conditions in greece the debt could have been bought by the central bank and greece could have been told to reduce spending to a 1.5% primary surplus and no interest and no further loans. In fact the greek debt increased because of the interest piling on to the debt as the EZ sought repayment for their bailouts while financing greek deficits that were mostly interest.

Terrible Idea with the countries that were put in it. This was one of those things economists actually could see coming, at least anyone who paid attention to competitive imbalances. The implementation was awful too and how germany seeks to redress those internal competitive imbalances leads to huge global imbalances and effectively runs the entire eurozone as a beggar thy neighbour scam. It was pursued for politics rather than economics, should have integrated their fiscal policies and centralised debt.
It's THE worst and most dangerous macroeconomic policy pursued in the developed world.

 

Or maybe it's just his view, that rubs your biases the right way.

Please. I have no opinion about a paparazzi posed photo-op shot.

 

Just because I interrupted yours doesn't mean you have to interrupt mine I was nearly finished
It was how they behaved at the time and it is how the EU works, it's not only him.

 

What, the EU being the scapegoat for a country's own poor fiscal and economic judgements? Sure, I can see the parallels.

 

The EU isn't a scapegoat in the case of greece, italy, spain etc. It is the economic reality of having a currency union with massive competitive imbalances, no EZ wide automatic stabilisers, wage growth being purposely held down in germany (which is a textbook beggar thy neighbour policy and is actually a form ), with germany's and others refusal to inflate their economies to ease the re-balance of competitiveness.
It's not some petty moral story, It's a continental catastrophe that could lead to a global catastrophe.
Those countries trading 1:1 with germany is like putting a pug in a pitbull fight.
The Eu hasn't got a single Major policy that is actually successful and helpful: euro, CAP, CFP, schengen, free movement, various constantly increasing regulation (exporting costs to member states), inability to form single market in services. It's not a terribly successful institution and the political federalist ideologues who chose their shiny bauble, the euro, against all economic understanding of optimal currency areas threaten the world with a massive global catastrophe if they don't get their act together one way or the other. Please don't pretend our salvation lies with those who made the biggest policy mistake in the developed world since at least 1945 or we'd be better off shackled to them.

I remember you lauding the educational accomplishments and intelligence of the eurocrats we will be facing (despite the fact that our civil service is quite good in that department too), all it reminds me of is that Simpsons episode where the intelligent take over Springfield and totally cock it up.

 

I'm sure that Greece lying about its budget deficit to get into the Euro and then going on a spending spree had nothing to do with it. And lets not talk about Italy or Spain.

And yes, the British civil service is world-class. It is, I note, also pro-EU. Shame its political masters are idiots, and don't listen to it anymore*.

You can argue that the EU is bad (mmmokay) for all sorts of economic reasons and you probably even have very valid points, but the fact is that none of these reasons motivated the Brexiteers. They didn't analyse the EU's flaws with a incisive, sharp critical mind and develop a brilliant alternative economic and industrial master plan poised for execution once out of it. They didn't even have much of an ideology (as revealed by their internal bickering). The EU was just a scapegoat to deflect blame onto. Nobody actually expected Cameron to be dumb enough to hold a referendum, and nobody expected that Leave would actually win.

And now? Farage quit politics altogether (he is just nominally completing his stint as MEP to be eligible for the handsome pension it entitles him to). He is already on record stating that if Brexit destroys the country, he will emigrate. Boris ran away after the referendum. Gove ****ed up his leadership bid because people basically realised that he's a backstabber. Leadsom did not survive first contact with the press. In the end, May --a Remainer-- was the best that they could come up with. And I didn't see your hero Rees-Mogg step forward.

And Cummings? He is just crying on Twitter that they're doing it wrong.

Meanwhile the Torygraph is writing articles claiming that France is jealous that it can't Frexit because it doesn't have the same history as Britain and invoking the Dunkirk spirit. "We need a Brexit plan we can get behind!". Yeah, you do for damn sure, mate. The Telegraph: where insanity meets pathos and begets a ******* child named parody.

(Oh, and apparently the UK needs a better gender balance in the Brexit negotiating team. Priorities, I suppose.)

So where are the Brexiteers? Not leading this thing, that's for sure. Hiding behind Theresa May's skirts, shaking their fists at the EU while whining that mommy Theresa isn't Brexiting hard enough. Shouting from the sidelines, in a pissing contest as to who embraces the hardest Brexit. But not leading it. May meanwhile is being 'guided' by sociopath ambitious svengalis like Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill, and the Legatum private investment firm, God help us.

It's a bit like leaving the NHS because it is inefficient and bureaucratic, to discover that the brilliant alternative health care service they had in mind is their faith healer best mate practicing from his Harley Street basement office, charging a fortune for crystal healing.


* The Simpsons is a comedy cartoon, BTW.

 

The macroeconomics of the situation, that being the competitive imbalances and lack of conditions for an optimal currency area, would have led to a crisis or series thereof on the same scale, just delayed. This is a very uncontroversial point in macroeconomics of all schools (except maybe the ordoliberal germans). Spain, Italy, portugal and cyprus are examples of such a situation that is slightly less extreme because the issues I've outlined several times. Even If it were entirely true it doesn't cover the institution in glory that it broke its own rules to let Italy into the EZ and couldn't even do a simple thing like audit Greece's deficit and debt levels. And that doesn't negate the plain fact that this situation of beggar thy neighbour policy from germany isn't endangering the global economy.

I am dubious of their motivation for being pro EU as should have the EEC been when they let us in. (maybe their public school classics education made them take the Greek horse in Troy much more seriously... )

I don't think it wise to pull all your political opponents down to their lowest common denominator. I don't think it is wise to believe a government can create an economic master plan the government (in areas outside of natural monopolies, externalities and third party protection) and so on just often need to step off.

I'm not going to address the least charitable interpretation of the others. But I'll make clear he's not my hero, just the one whom I think can best lead the party, since david davis is fairly old and brexit minister,

Labour identity politics

Freudian mother analysis in all but name...

I said reminds me of. Further there is a massive element of truth to it, as with most comedy that's actually funny, intellectual arrogance can be very dangerous. We have strong checks and balances in the STEM fields against this, mostly, for this reason. People with high intellects are still human and work on heuristics and when you think "i'm smarter than all these people and I can run their lives better than they can" you're in very dangerous territory.

All in all though as much as most of that changes the topic non of that is an argument against near every major EU policy being a disaster in often multiple ways (or in the case of the regulations, quite often varying degrees of meh to S**t, with the odd okay that's fine i suppose.)

 

Considering UK Ministers voted on the majority side in the EU votes 95% of the time since 1999, abstaining a further 3% of the time, I am curious as to which of the disasterous 'major EU' policies that we haven't actively been instigators of.

 

You know the Conservatives are in deep **** if Rees-Mogg is the best that they have to offer.

The man lacks the fundamental quality of compassion, and in the leader of a country that is an essential quality. He's just another Theresa May with extra posh on the side, and would crash and burn just as spectacularly.

 

Tories: Well i don't think we could do anything that would make us look more out of touch with the general populace than we are now...

Rees-Mogg: Jeeves! Hold my Chiraz!

 

he doesn't lack compassion, that's just baseless conjecture.


From 4:30.
Actually watch it all, it's clear what you say is just prejudice rather than truth.

Complicit in mostly, but consensus politics results in this, compromise.
If you want a fruit salad, nexxo want's a shepherd's pie, corky wants jelly and custard, I want fish, anfeild wants chips. And all of us can only have one or none or a compromise of our options then you end up with this:
https://geekplate.com/2015/02/20/rachels-thanksgiving-trifle-from-friends/

 

That's not compassion; that is finely crafted political rhetoric. He condemns the tragedies (check), plays lip service to the idea that the government works for the people (check), says that voters are fed up with business as usual (check) AMD then argues that the path to better living standards is to lower prices --rather than raise wages. Race to the bottom: check.

But let's examine Jacob Reese-Mogg's voting record:

• On 5 Feb 2013:Jacob Rees-Mogg voted against allowing same sex couples to marry.
• On 4 Dec 2012:Jacob Rees-Mogg voted to repeal the Human Rights Act 1998
• On 16 Apr 2013:Jacob Rees-Mogg voted against making it illegal to discriminate on the basis of caste.
• On 16 Feb 2011:Jacob Rees-Mogg voted against a legally binding Military Covenant set out in law.
• On 14 Jun 2011:Jacob Rees-Mogg voted against requiring public bodies and minsters to consider the effects of people's service in the armed forces when setting healthcare, education and housing policy and to consider if special provisions for current, and former, service personnel are justified.
• On 19 Oct 2016:Jacob Rees-Mogg voted against EU nationals living in the UK retaining rights, including the right to live and work in the UK, should the UK leave the EU.
• On 8 Feb 2017:Jacob Rees-Mogg voted against seeking to protect the residence rights of citizens of the European Union and their family members who were lawfully resident in the United Kingdom on 23 June 2016.
• Consistently voted for reducing housing benefit for social tenants deemed to have excess bedrooms (which Labour describe as the "bedroom tax")
• Consistently voted against raising welfare benefits at least in line with prices.
• Consistently voted against paying higher benefits over longer periods for those unable to work due to illness or disability
• Almost always voted for increasing the rate of VAT
• Almost always voted against a banker’s bonus tax
• Consistently voted for ending financial support for some 16-19 year olds in training and further education but for undergraduate tuition fees
• Consistently voted for reducing central government funding of local government but voted against more powers for local councils
• Consistently voted for phasing out secure tenancies for life
• Consistently voted against restrictions on fees charged to tenants by letting agents
• Almost always voted for restricting the scope of legal aid

So he voted against human rights, against special protections for (ex-) service personnel, against funding of local councils while also stripping them of their powers; he deplores Grenfell but votes against tenants' rights; he worries about people not being able to challenge bailiffs but voted to reduce their ability to seek redress in the courts; he talks about raising standards of living by lowering prices but then votes for raising vat.
A man is defined not by his fine words, but by his actions. But you just keep buying into the cult of personality.

 

How many of those are defined by the government whip, many are voting down opposition ammendments . Nice copy and paste from they work for you BTW.
1. so did merkel. Gay rights are not up for change.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/jacob-rees-mogg-twitter-instagram_uk_59708bf5e4b0aa14ea77b72c?
On others votes one way don't say why they voted that way.
I'd vote against plenty of provisions that he may have.

And few of those votes say much about compassion. On the welfare issues it isn't necessarily compassionate to be for high welfare, quite likely the opposite in many cases. People may come to different ideas of what is compassionate.

Like you might want to look into some of those votes for the necessity of their implementation i.e caste:

Thatcher wasn't deem compassionate by many, i'd dispute this, she did alright. But like all supposed virtues, they have to be tempered against reality as one understands it.