Europe - The Official Thread

[Touring Mars]

Who do you think you are kidding, Mr. van Rompuy?

I wonder how many people in that session got that reference?

 

[emacifa]

Berlusconi is gone ...this is one of the first step to get betta here in italy even if it'll be hard!

 

[Vince_Fiero]

I heard some more comments from the Greeks:

1) Europeans push the austerity measures.
2) When the public was going to be consulted, the Europeans blocked the referendum
3) The new leader was assigned because he had European support
...

Who's country is this?

They have a point there, I must admit, but on the other hand they have signed a pact to be in the Euro and they did not respect it, so ....

 

[Ibonibo]

^ I think it's one of the first times that a head of a state quits because of recommendations of economy and exterior politics (especially Italy, Greece was obvious).
And the new italian gouverement was not elected too. And has no real politicans, but professionals from the economy (that is a bit + in my books)

@Keef : that is in talks behind curtains. It will come sooner or later. But they try to shove it down our throats. In 100 years, it might be ok, but not in the forseeable futur. They need to learn, not everything needs to be "now".

@Shpinx : what he called VanRompuy is true (but not very diplomatic). They would never elect someone who will bitch around and is vigilant. They need a mellow person (just as Ashton) so they can continue to do what they want. JC Junker was not elected because of that. He would hit too many people on the fingers.

As for Nigel Farage, come on!
The guy who is against everything the EU stands for. The EU is a good thing if our politicians would be a bit more moderated and modest.
The EU as economical union is a golden idea and has brought a worn tore continent back to glory without a disadavantage, wars, ....
I love the EU as it is, only certain politicans like Merkel and Sarko want to go really strong so they can be n history books too. But both will not be there anymore in 2012/2013.
As for the UK, I don't know how the people view it, but your politicans are absolut rubbish (on the EU level, can't comment on national level). They don't want the Euro, they don't want anything to do with the EU, but when times come, and it will come as the UK banks will suffer over the Euro, Greece, Italy and others, you will come and beg the EU for help. Cameron wants to have a say in the Euro crisis, well then he also needs to accept the saying of others.
Now the bashing of a Sarko on Cameron is stupid too, but Sarko is only stupid for that matter.

The EU and the Euro will stay. There is no going back to old currency for the whole euro (maybe one or two countries).
And in this case it will be true: what doesn't kill us makes us stronger.

 

[RTSolvalou]

Boot out greece, they will never repay the funds and they have almost zero exports, and tourism is just tourism.

 

[Touring Mars]

David Cameron has used the UK's veto to block proposed changes to the EU-wide treaty that were being sought by the majority of EU leaders, and all Eurozone leaders.

I believe that Cameron had no choice but to veto these plans, because it is enshrined in UK law that any substantive changes to the treaty would have to be put to a referendum... and right now, there is little chance that a UK referendum would approve the proposed changes. The question is, is going it alone a wise move, or are we better off distancing ourselves from the trainwreck that is about to happen in the Eurozone?

edit: One Lib Dem MEP has just said that she is planning to move to Ireland and take up Irish citizenship in protest

edit 2: It looks like the other countries that initially agreed with the UK position have since changed their minds or are still undecided...

 

[Ibonibo]

^Yeah, you're alone. What a partay?

Common Britain, seriously? You want an extra sausage like a little child, and that was now going on for years now.
Finally someone hit the fist on the table and now you are on a crossroad:
Leave the EU or complety integrate in the EU?

What's worse?

What power does Britain have alone?
Alliance with the US (honestly they don't care that much about such a tiny country, they are just your friend to have a mole/rat inside the EU)
Commonwealth has no power anymore on the economical level.
So you would be left alone. Which will crumble your economy like a cardhouse. You will have no competitive strength against Brasil, China, Russia, US or EU

Nobody in the 26EU countries like the direction it takes now, with the leadership of Merkosy, but a change had to be made to be more stable and competitive.
A federal EU will realisticlly not come (at least for a long time), Sarko will probably not be reelected and Merkel doesn't look too bright either. Though this can help them push their notority a fair bit.

But the dumbest proposition in all this is the financial punishement a state gets when overdepting.
Taking money from a country which has no money will not help solve the problem!
But the detailling will be made in the next months so we going to see how it unfolds.

Only left over now: Britain has to choose. I really don't see the point of having them still in the EU. They never participated in the Euro, Schengen, refuse and argue about every directive but want to have a say in everything.

They strongly remind me of this:

The typical student who is in your work group, doesn't do anything, doesn't show up, but later comes with proposition and is vexxed if nobody then listens to him. Buu***** huuu

 

[TheCracker]

Only left over now: Britain has to choose. I really don't see the point of having them still in the EU. They never participated in the Euro, Schengen, refuse and argue about every directive but want to have a say in everything.

Being part of the EU means we have the right to have our say. If the Schengen Agreement, the Common Currency or other EU directives don't suit us or could harm our economy - why would we want to be a part of them?

Being in the EU doesn't mean we (or any country) should just do what Germany and France say.

 

[Touring Mars]

Merkel, Sarkozy et al. are great at talking up a consensus, but at the end of the day, it ought to be the people who decide what is acceptable and what isn't - and it will be. Cameron seems to be the only EU leader right now who doesn't need to be told this. I think that other EU leaders will find out the hard way that they cannot ignore their electorates so easily - and they may also face legal issues in trying to press ahead without a mandate - the more powers they expect individual member states to cede to the EU, the more likely it is that they won't be able to side-step democracy and put the proposed changes to a public vote.

In any case, this whole treaty change business is doing very little to address the current debt crisis. Thus far, the EU leaders have come up with plan after plan about how to avoid getting into this situation again... what they haven't done yet is demonstrate how they are going to get out of the mess they are already in!

Britain may be isolated in the short term, but right now it feels like being kicked off the Titanic at Queenstown.

 

[Tornado]

What's worse?

Rolling over and taking everything proposed by EU mandate, no matter how damaging it is to you, just because France wants you to do it.

 

[Ibonibo]

Cracker:
joining a club, no matter what club, as in real ife, you not only have rights but also obligations.
England has always just approved things that are good for the Uk and denied everything else. Than why join a club?
That's the same as a child : receieving but nor giving.

Touring Mars: I don't think that this alone will resolve the problem too. But since 2008 everybody was talking big about more control but nothing was made. Now there is something, even if it is just a beginning.
And as said, the other countries are not happy with the guidance of Merkosy too, but we needed something fast, and this is surely not perfect but it is surely not wrong.

Britain may be isolated in the short term, but right now it feels like being kicked off the Titanic at Queenstown.

Well you can view it like that or see it as the coward who flees before the fight.
If it gets resolved, Cameron will be a laughing stock.

Toronado : While nobody is happy with Merkosy, 24 other countries agreed, they had a veto right but didn't use it for a reason. because something had to be made, even if it is only to give more power to the ECB (which can now lend money on an indirect way to countries). And this is far less damaging then the Eurobonds (which for me is marxism), or just printing money. And why is it damaging? It isn't even decided how far it will go, they bascilly agreed to do something on the fiscal and budgetary levels, so no country can ask for money while scamming,cheating on their budgets and balance sheet.

They try to get to the root of the problem (more control against cheating, more control of the finance place) rather than just fighting the symptomes (printing money and buying rotten papers).

 

[crooky369]

I really don't know a lot about politics and most of the time when I watch the news nothing really stands out that often. Well for once this feels like big news that could have a massive impact on a lot of people's lives in the UK....

 

[Sphinx]

^Yeah, you're alone. What a partay?

Common Britain, seriously? You want an extra sausage like a little child, and that was now going on for years now.
Finally someone hit the fist on the table and now you are on a crossroad:
Leave the EU or complety integrate in the EU?

What's worse?

What power does Britain have alone?
Alliance with the US (honestly they don't care that much about such a tiny country, they are just your friend to have a mole/rat inside the EU)
Commonwealth has no power anymore on the economical level.
So you would be left alone. Which will crumble your economy like a cardhouse. You will have no competitive strength against Brasil, China, Russia, US or EU

Nobody in the 26EU countries like the direction it takes now, with the leadership of Merkosy, but a change had to be made to be more stable and competitive.
A federal EU will realisticlly not come (at least for a long time), Sarko will probably not be reelected and Merkel doesn't look too bright either. Though this can help them push their notority a fair bit.

But the dumbest proposition in all this is the financial punishement a state gets when overdepting.
Taking money from a country which has no money will not help solve the problem!
But the detailling will be made in the next months so we going to see how it unfolds.

Only left over now: Britain has to choose. I really don't see the point of having them still in the EU. They never participated in the Euro, Schengen, refuse and argue about every directive but want to have a say in everything.

They strongly remind me of this:

The typical student who is in your work group, doesn't do anything, doesn't show up, but later comes with proposition and is vexxed if nobody then listens to him. Buu***** huuu

It's just like 1802 & 1940 all over again.


It's a shame we're alone again, it's only been 5 years (2006) since we managed to pay off our WW2 debts in order to play our part in liberating Europe. How about you guys?

Here are some quotes that echo your dislike to British politicians and how they act against Europe for their own interest.

British statesmen are always somewhat slow in grasping facts, but they will learn to see this in time.

I feel a deep disgust for this type of unscrupulous politician who wrecks whole nations

I feel it to be my duty before my own conscience to appeal once more to reason and common sense in Great Britain as much as elsewhere. I consider myself in a position to make this appeal since I am not the vanquished begging favors, but the victor speaking in the name of reason.

Adolf Hitler.

Thank goodness we British think differently from time to time. Don't you agree.

​

Anyway, enough of this factual tomfoolery, although I have to admit to being somewhat proud to be part of the bad boy of Europe bridgade for the above reasons. Goodness knows why we are but if the rest of Europe want to refer to us as that then it's fine by me.

Cracker:
joining a club, no matter what club, as in real ife, you not only have rights but also obligations.
England has always just approved things that are good for the Uk and denied everything else. Than why join a club?
That's the same as a child : receieving but nor giving.

Oh please. I could give you many examples of other members who do the exact same thing, France & Germany included. Once the bad boy, always the bad boy and the media will exploit that because it sells papers.

Touring Mars: I don't think that this alone will resolve the problem too. But since 2008 everybody was talking big about more control but nothing was made. Now there is something, even if it is just a beginning.
And as said, the other countries are not happy with the guidance of Merkosy too, but we needed something fast, and this is surely not perfect but it is surely not wrong.

There were already controls in place, it's only because Germany and France choose to ignore these controls (for their own interest), and got away with it, did the smaller countries follow suit in the belief that if it's good for the goose then it must be good for the gander.

Well you can view it like that or see it as the coward who flees before the fight.
If it gets resolved, Cameron will be a laughing stock.

I'm sorry, I didn't realise it was our fight. The last I heard the Euro elite were demanding that we keep our nose out of their business. It appears they got what they asked for.

Toronado : While nobody is happy with Merkosy, 24 other countries agreed, they had a veto right but didn't use it for a reason. because something had to be made, even if it is only to give more power to the ECB (which can now lend money on an indirect way to countries). And this is far less damaging then the Eurobonds (which for me is marxism), or just printing money. And why is it damaging? It isn't even decided how far it will go, they bascilly agreed to do something on the fiscal and budgetary levels, so no country can ask for money while scamming,cheating on their budgets and balance sheet.

Oh yes, the backdoor IMF plan. Good luck with that.

They try to get to the root of the problem (more control against cheating, more control of the finance place) rather than just fighting the symptomes (printing money and buying rotten papers).

As I asked in an earlier post, where's the money coming from? In my opinion it's gone too far. At the end of the day and just before the **** hits the fan , print they will. When? My guess is mad March.

 

[Touring Mars]

Britain may be the only EU country to have explicitly rejected the proposed treaty changes already, but that is not to say that it's a done deal for the other 26 countries, whose leaders have atleast agreed to the treaty changes in principle.

Today, a broad coalition in Germany, including Angela Merkel's own party, have put forward a paper that demands that the German parliament has more say in what happens in these negotiations regarding saving the Euro. Perhaps this sounds insignificant, but if Merkel's own party are not happy about not being consulted about what she and other EU leaders are proposing to enshrine into European law, just imagine how the electorate must feel. And if this is happening in Germany, you can rest assured that there will be considerably more unease in other EU countries, especially those for whom surrendering control over their own budgets could have dire long term consequences.

Add to that the possibility that what Merkel, Sarkozy, Barroso etc. are trying to do may be illegal.

 

[Ibonibo]

Oh please. I could give you many examples of other members who do the exact same thing, France & Germany included. Once the bad boy, always the bad boy and the media will exploit that because it sells papers.

I don't think everybody has to agree the whole time, but saying no the whole time is a different problem. But britain like making schism's



There were already controls in place, it's only because Germany and France choose to ignore these controls (for their own interest), and got away with it, did the smaller countries follow suit in the belief that if it's good for the goose then it must be good for the gander.

The controls are not god enough and never were. Otherwise Greece would never had been allowed to join the Euro. More control is good without having a fiscal union. It needs to have more control, not just have the terminal balance sheet, but the whole file, to prevent manipulation on the balance sheets, which are easy and mostly not illegal duw to loopholes


I'm sorry, I didn't realise it was our fight. The last I heard the Euro elite were demanding that we keep our nose out of their business. It appears they got what they asked for.

I need to say, that what happend there was not right from the beginning and not diplomatic. Sarko is a ****! That's it! Merkel and Sarko complained about the media talkig about a 2 class Europe, but they basiclly started it and now Cameron joined and pushed it into reality (all of them). I am not a defender of Merkel and surely not of Louis de Funes, eeemm I mean Sarkosy. But the consequences will be a lot worse for britain then they will be for the rest of Europe.


Oh yes, the backdoor IMF plan. Good luck with that.

As I asked in an earlier post, where's the money coming from? In my opinion it's gone too far. At the end of the day and just before the **** hits the fan , print they will. When? My guess is mad March.

^
Printing money is not necessarily a bad thing, but it must be accompagnied by an other mesure, otherwise it effect will be really short term (aka US). The crisis in the US will come back in a way bigger way than it was 2008 because they just printed money without changing anything to the root f the problem

On the Uk again, I read yesterday that the Sunday mail(?) had a statistic in which majority of the Uk wants out of the EU. For my opinion, that is very short sighted, because, EU is the biggest commerical partner of the UK, leaving the EU will cost you more for the same outcome. Your financial hot spot will suffer in long term, because first you will become an offshore paradise for Europe (banks), but in long terms a lot of banks will leave London (cause by EU finance regulations and HQ laws). So your biggest concern will be killed by yourself.
I understand that Britain fights for it's economy. But let's take a look at Luxembourg, 80% of the income comes from banks, the EU wants us to leave our bank secret behind, but we would never leave the EU and our income is a lot more dependant on the bank sector than in the Uk. We also fought and still do to preserve our income model, but we do it in a diplomatic way and not like a stubborn child, who turns around and doesn't want to play anymore.

For me, personally, I don't really care, Uk in or out, it's basiclly the same as you were never really committed. But I fear for the UK that this decision will cost them more in the long term than the thought. Because honestly, Cameron wanted to act for the London spot (which will backfire) and to reinforce his place in his own party. He didn't made the choice for the best of his country.

Hypothetical: Uk leaves the EU. EU instores financial regulations which due to many reasons will dry out the London spot for a good %.
What will happen to Britain, what other sector do you still have after the revolution of Theatcher? What will be Britains main income be?
I don't say you will not regroup and reinvent yourself in the long term, but that process is very costly, especially for the lower and middle class people.

T. Mars : nothing is still written down, so nothing has gone by the parliament. In Germany it's an own case, which will probably be decided in front of the constitutional court. I think the parliament needs it's say in all this and in most if not every countries they will. They just decided to work on a paper for more control.
Just their dead line is false. it will be at least 6 months till the paper is done.
And nobody is losing an other souverain power as it is. You just get a more serious audit if you go below a certain ratio or it smells fishy. And if it is the case, you get recommendations, not the EU who rewrites the budget.
The EU won't have a say in your budget. It just controls them. You can still do in your budget what you want as long as your not endebting you country too much.
And this is already a power that has been lost a long time ago to the EU, it will just spread a small part to make this audits.
It's the same as you getting an audit after reaching in a fishy income declaration. You not giving up any of your rights.
A lot worse would have been a fiscal union!

On barroso: in 2009 he was in holidays in greece on a yacht of a greek billionaire. Shady? rofl
Politicans are, like Red Foreman would say, dumb asses!

 

[TheCracker]

On the Uk again, I read yesterday that the Sunday mail(?) had a statistic in which majority of the Uk wants out of the EU.

Well there's your problem!

 

[Ibonibo]

^I didn't read the Uk version of it, it was cited in a german news paper.
As I said it the weed thread : Churchill : Don't trust statistics that you didn't falsify yourself
But it's a fact that Uk is pretty half splitted about the EU.

 

[Leonidae@MFT]

Umm.. Most of the EU wants out of the EU.

 

[TheCracker]

But it's a fact that Uk is pretty half splitted about the EU.

The informed amongst us are indeed split to whether the Veto, and being part of the EU for that matter, is a good thing. There are so many pros and cons on what is such a complex issue, its hard to make a definite choice one way or the other. Only time will tell that right decision has been made for us.

The less informed are likely to go with what ever newspaper they follow leans towards.

Pro-Europe or not, a majority of us don't want to concede even more power to Brussels than we already do. For better or worse, we'd prefer to hold our destiny in our own hands. Unless you are from an island nation, you probably wouldn't understand.

 

[Liquid]

I don't say you (The UK) will not regroup and reinvent yourself in the long term, but that process is very costly, especially for the lower and middle class people.

Which is why there is a lot of euroscepticism in the UK. We, the lower classes, are constantly being squeezed out of every penny and luxury we can scarcely afford. And if the UK has to assist in bailing out parts of the Eurozone, then that's an extra burden on us on top of the necessary-but-unfortunate cuts to health and services.

I'm a fan of the EU, in principle. But it seems that if you align yourself one way or another you get tarred with the extreme brush. "I like the EU" = ZOMG! You want a United States of Europe, you lefty loony! and "I dislike the EU" = ZOMG! You're a right wing nut job who wants to keep asylum seekers in prison ships and have barbed wire surrounding the coast. It's all about balance. Economic co-operation is a good and worthwhile idea, but not economic assimilation. I have always thought that a single currency can't work with our principles of exchange rates. €1 in Greece or Spain is not worth or as strong as €1 in France or Germany. That is, things cost more in the stronger countries like France/Germany, which creates a gulf of inbalance between Eurozone nations.

The Euro was doomed for the start, as a prominent french politician told us recently. 15 years too late, mind. He said he tried to lecture about the dangers of a single currency but was gagged from doing so.

But the wider problem is the finance sector as a whole. Deregulation was one of the worst things to happen. It's like your money physically being in a bank vault and the bank saying, "Oh, we'll leave the bank vault unlocked, in case we decide can shift your money elsewhere". 3 boos for fractional reserve banking. It's salt into the wound that the Euro has its own problems, and then the global financial crisis too. The pound is struggling, the yen is struggling, the US dollar is struggling, the Chinese are artificially keeping their currency stable (allegedly).

As a british person, sure I feel agrieved at having to bail out Ireland for example, because I'd much rather see my own taxpounds be invested in my own country, but even the bigger and more secure nations like the UK, France and Germany must see sense and realise that if their dandelion florets start to dwindle away, they're going to be left with nothing more than a bare stalk.

I think Cameron was wrong to veto the treaty. Now is not the time to play party politics. In any country. Divided we stand, united we fall? Perhaps. If the UK assisted, it could have been future leverage in a cynical way. Could have been. But it's certainly right that we've all got to muck in, whether we prefer driving on the left and using miles or quote decimals with commas and kiss on cheeks to greet one another.

Every country is going to be going through hardships. The analogy I see is that the cuts and desperate economic savings that need to be made are like a plaster. You're going to have to rip it off sometime and you know it. It's going to hurt, badly. And it'll hurt some people more than others, depending on how deep their individual wound is.

 

[Dotini]

It would appear that Europe, like much of the world, is trapped between two suddenly irreconcilable forces. On the one hand you are striving to maintain national identity and self-determination, and on the other hand trying to stay solvent and above water, financially.

Both of these forces have thousands of years of intertwined history and acculturation, and have been part of the same web of progress. Now, rather shockingly, they are opposed and mutually exclusive. What happened!?

Globalism, market forces, international capitalism, international corporations, brokerages, banks and the people who run them have for the past generation been steadily re-engineering the "system of the world". But these institutions, led by college educated businessmen, regulators and politicians seem to have run ahead of (1) the reality of whole populations not quite ready to go along with this, and (2) the "law of gravity" which says that growth is neither linear nor perpetual, and that spending, speculation and debt (i.e., risk) must eventually be paid for.

IMHO, the common denominator for all these problems is hubris, and principally the hubris engendered by those academics theorists who gave the false stamp of authority for our "best and brightest" to take our institutions and money and run them to extreme levels of arrant leverage, debt and the cock-sure attitude that the smart guys are always right and your future is safely in their hands.

A friend of mine, a working class bloke that made it briefly into top management circles at Boeing used to joke that, whenever trapped in doubt and trouble, the management would hold hands, join in a circle, and sing, "We don't know what we're doing; we don't know what we're doing!"

Phew!
Steve

 

[Liquid]

It would appear that Europe, like much of the world, is trapped between two suddenly irreconcilable forces. On the one hand you are striving to maintain national identity and self-determination, and on the other hand trying to stay solvent and above water, financially.

Let's sort out the latter first and we'll talk about the former when we're back on our feet.

Simple, no?

 

[Touring Mars]

Let's sort out the latter first and we'll talk about the former when we're back on our feet.

Simple, no?

Simple, indeed... so why the hell are Merkel and Sarkozy pressing on with this treaty change cobblers while doing nothing to address the debt crisis that is already upon them?? The treaty change is designed to stop Eurozone countries from getting into this kind of unholy mess again, is it not? That's great, but surely the time for doing this is after they've put forward a credible plan to address the current debt crisis, with the clock ticking louder and louder.

 

[Liquid]

Simple, indeed... so why the hell are Merkel and Sarkozy pressing on with this treaty change cobblers while doing nothing to address the debt crisis that is already upon them?? The treaty change is designed to stop Eurozone countries from getting into this kind of unholy mess again, is it not? That's great, but surely the time for doing this is after they've put forward a credible plan to address the current debt crisis, with the clock ticking louder and louder.

Exactly. Don't spend next month's wages until you've done the work to earn them.

Which, coincidentally, is what has contributed to this mess. Woof.

 

[Ibonibo]

It's all about balance. Economic co-operation is a good and worthwhile idea, but not economic assimilation.

Exactly.

The Euro was doomed for the start, as a prominent french politician told us recently. 15 years too late, mind. He said he tried to lecture about the dangers of a single currency but was gagged from doing so.

Problem was letting countries in with false balance sheets. And countries like Greece now can't devalue their money which is an other problem but with the same source: letting them in before they had a stable and viable economy

But the wider problem is the finance sector as a whole. Deregulation was one of the worst things to happen.

Exactly, we need to regulate it again and not loosen those rules

Touring Mars:

If we do not regulate now it will not happen after the crisis, because all is good again.
That was the problem with the 2008 crisis. Every country was advocating for more rules, but after the crisis settled, we didn't want to do it anymore.
Now we have a leverage to make those rules in the same time as we attack the crisis.

Exactly. Don't spend next month's wages until you've done the work to earn them.

Generally I agree. I live also by this. But you need to do depts, even as a private, otherwise nobody normal could afford his own house.
There is a historical reason behind lending money and it's a good thing, but you always need to realize that you need to pay it back. And you can't lend amounts that are impossible to pay back.

And that is one of the biggest flaws of our economical model is that there is no frontier, you can't always be bigger every year and be number 1.
What's wrong with 2nd, 3rd,...

 

[Liquid]

Generally I agree. I live also by this. But you need to do depts, even as a private, otherwise nobody normal could afford his own house.
There is a historical reason behind lending money and it's a good thing, but you always need to realize that you need to pay it back. And you can't lend amounts that are impossible to pay back.

And that is one of the biggest flaws of our economical model is that there is no frontier, you can't always be bigger every year and be number 1.
What's wrong with 2nd, 3rd,...

Yeah, a healthy debt is a necessity in this day and age but I'm sure you understand that my analogy of spending next month's wages before you've done the work to earn them was aimed at Merkozy planning to avoid the next euro flop before they've sorted this one out first. It's dire.

I feel sympathetic towards those who use the euro. I do feel slightly safer with the pound, and the UK's increased ability to self-regulate its economy, but like I've said in my other posts, I can cast national pride and sovereignty aside (Which is a whole other kettle of fish) and heartily state that every EU state needs to help each other out, regardless if it's krona, lev, pounds or euro. Some won't like it, but the potential implosion is.. incomprehendable. Sort out the terms of agreement later. They've already made one bed, now they most certainly have to lie in it.

 

[Touring Mars]

Even The Guardian are backing Cameron now..

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/dec/13/europe-hopeless-david-cameron-right

 

[Liquid]

I've never trusted a newspaper in my life. And I don't trust politicians either, even the ones I like.

All this mistrust.. it instills a lack of confidence; something else which was a key factor in the global crisis. My business teacher once tried to explain how a lack of confidence was the key factor in this whole farcial shambles. He's half right. Confidence, or a lack thereof, was a factor, but not the main one. It was a catalyst that basically served as a self-fufilling prophecy. People thought things were going to go bad, so things went bad. Obviously things were bad, but the lack of confidence in the markets and politicians sped the process up. It would have developed slower if people still believed in the markets.

Now, obviously it's not the absolute solution but I would not underestimate the power of confidence in this case. Think of it as an economic placebo effect; people believe the markets will become stronger, and they slowly will. But regenerating that confidece? That is the question. Our heads of government aren't doing much to fix this.

 

[Keef]

Who the hell wants an entire continent on one single currency? That just ensures that when one country fails it drags the rest of them down with it.


OH WAIT.

 

[Liquid]

Who the hell wants an entire continent on one single currency? That just ensures that when one country fails it drags the rest of them down with it.


OH WAIT.

Captain Obvious wasn't invited to chair the meeting when they decided this.

He could have been the hero of the hour.

It's almost painful for me to check the news each day.