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cobber950

Listed below are comments made by cobber950 between Wednesday, 17th December 2008 and Monday, 12th January 2009.

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Economy, economy, economy 4:45pm on 12 Jan 2009 155 Derek Barker

The West is collectively asking for $3.5trillion from countries like China to bale them out, Unfortunately China already owns nearly $2 trillion of debt and needs money for its own problems
With oil plummeting most of the producing countries have seen the amount of money they earned plummet likewise, Russia has already lost a third of its reserves and has rising problems of its own to sort out, likewise Japan

So where's the money for the 'stimulus' coming from?

All that's left is printing money effectively destroying the value of savings, pensions at same time as reducing the value of debts

In 2007 the banks borrowed £740 billion to fund mortgages from money markets most of it from abroad,unless we start saving to reduce that dependency ultimately all that money will leave the economy to flow abroad leaving us with unproductive piles of bricks and mortar reducing in value producing nothing.
Norwegian shelter 4:05pm on 08 Jan 2009 37 Jorge g1

Your decostruction of FreebornJohns on
Justice/Home affairs

All the things you say about the databases are true
However by 2010 we will have had an election at which we will be able to get rid of these policies by voting in a different government. If we retain this government then Europe may dislike these databases but they will have been validated by a democratic vote.
However the pan European arrest warrent which allows any country or Eu official to get me arrested without having to get an extradition through a court, even for something that is not a crime in this country, is as a great an infringement of my rights as any database created by this government
What election can I vote in to stop that?
On foreign affairs if every country is free to set its own policies, why create a permanent Foreign Secretary for the EU, why ask for the power to sit as permanent member of the UN Security council, why ask British taxpayers to fond Eu embassies when we have a perfectly useful set of our own?
Plus c'est la mme chose? 09:55am on 06 Jan 2009 239 derek barker

You forgot to add 'but cheerfully taxed it all' to GB's actions

All your 'area fruit co-ordinators','child pedestrian training facilitators' etc relied on GB taking 40bnBP from activities in the city you deplored

50bn from motorists, when they believe everyone should go on a bus

Billions from North Sea Oil to destroy the planet. You'll be glad to know activity in the North Sea is plummeting, unfortunately so is the tax take, putting at risk all these doctors,nurses etc you keep rattling on about
Ring out the old 2:07pm on 31 Dec 2008 22.
Your comment on parliamentary procedures is meaningless.

In all 3 referenda held, there were substantial majorities in the 3 parliaments of France ,Holland and Ireland in favour of the constitution.

That parliamentary consensus was rejected in all 3 with substantial no votes

There is now a complete disconnect between peoples and parliaments across Europe as consensus politicians give peoples in all the countries little or no choice in how countries are run leading to increased protests and the growth in the support for the far left and right.

In Britain this has led to the govt campaigning for a no vote in a referendum to provide directly elected mayors(a govt policy) precisely to avoid the far right gaining the positions created, elected police commissioners are being shelved for the same reason

With politicians across Europe running away from any vote they do not have to take, huddling together behind their Brussels ramparts, terrified of their populations excersing their right to vote, such is the state of 'democracy' in Europe
Ring out the old 10:15am on 31 Dec 2008 11. Anthony Zacharzewski

Your argument would have more force if those who voted Yes were given the same chance to have a second vote.

The only vote Britain has ever had was in 1974, when I was 8, I am now 42 and like half the adult population of Britain, have never had a chance to vote in any referenda on the EEC.

The fact that a near 40yr old mandate to join a 15 member trading block has been taken to be all the authority required to find ourselves in a nascent United States of Europe of 27 members with 80% of laws coming from that body, undermining centuries of parliamentary sovereignty and our ability to hold the executive to account for any laws negotiated on our behalf with the end of national vetoes, is the true scandal of the lack of referendums.

The powers being transferred, do not belong to the politicians who are transferring them, but are the rights of every individual in the country, vested in each parliament at the start of its term and handed back at its end to be disposed of as the electorate sees fit in an election.

That is why people need to be routinely asked in referenda if they approve such transfers of power and authority from 1 body to another.
MEPs reject UK opt-out 11:40pm on 18 Dec 2008 In my recent posts you have concentrated on the economic arguments, not the political.
Whatever you might think of the policies currently being run in Washington. The recent election of Obama in a continent wide election of 52 states to provide, gives him a mandate to follow policies he chooses.
Every person Republican or Democrat accepts absolutely hi s political authority to act.
No comission President, Council of Ministers etc will ever have that kind of authority, and the people of Europe don't want to give it to them.

This so called 'unique' institution has stripped powers from national governments while never having gained the political acceptance for the ability to use them.
Every country tha has held a referendum since Mastricht has originally lost it
The rise of the far right across Europe is largely a consequence of more and more people being disenfranchised from Eu decision making
The only way to stop this trend continuing is to transfer back powers to the governments of Europe who have retained the political authority to use them, and be held accountable for the use of them

On the issue of this blog If I want to work 60hrs a week in Aberdeen what does it matter to someone working in Antwerp
I do not seek the power to tell people in Antwerp how to work, thats up to them,leave me in peace to do likewise
MEPs reject UK opt-out 5:05pm on 18 Dec 2008 77
Like your complacency

The last 8yrs the Euro has lived in the same fantasy as the rest of the global economy, reality has now set in

Of the 15 members who joined the Euro none met all 3 reqirements set up by Mastricht ( including Germany) most barely met 2

Italy now has to pay 132 points above Germany for its debt and has to repay200Billion Euros next year

France ,Holland,Spain and others are crying out for a rate cut in the ECB,while the Germans want to maintain it for fear of inflation at home.

Will German taxpayers step in to help the Italians with their debt,if they struggle to pay it.
Will the Dutch be happy to alleviate unemployment in Spain by accepting an influx of Spanish workers to work at lower wages
The whole point about the US dollar is taxpayers in California will fund the bailout of banks in New York, Washington State will help fund carworkers in Illinois. The central states in America have been depopulated and noone batted an eyelid when that population re- appeared on the coast.

It is things like that which glue the dollar together, that glue is non existant in Europe.

Floating exchange rates between the states of Europe would allow interest rates more closely aligned with national interests
Currency fluctuations between the countries of Europe would have increased the flexibility required to solve this crisis
MEPs reject UK opt-out 3:23pm on 18 Dec 2008 63. You missed my main point, which was the Euro was created to drive greater political integration.

Ultimately the Euro will only succeed if all the debt in the Euro zone is aggregated into a single debt(as happens in Sterling and in the 52 states that constitute the dollar zone) to do this requires a single President, a single Finance minister that has the ability to tax everyone in the Eu zone to help pay off that debt, and the power to stop individual states spending money and building up their debt again
In the US the Federal govt spends 20% of US GDP and collects over half the tax take, to redistribute throughout the US as it sees fit without recourse to state legislatures.
It is this ability that gives the Dollar its strength
A single currency that allows individual states to spend and borrow, follow economic policies that might suit them, but are disasterous for their neighbours, as is starting to happen, will ultimately fail
MEPs reject UK opt-out 10:56am on 18 Dec 2008 58 Mendemus

The reason most people in Britain do not want the Euro is because ultimately any currency needs a political authority underpinning it that has the ability to raise taxes and borrow money
Noone has asked the question of what will happen if individual nations within the Euro zone develope debts so large they could default on them
Noone has asked the richer nations electorates if they would be willing to pump billions of Euro's into other weaker countries, if they started struggling.
For the Euro to survive might require the aggregating of all Eurozone country debt into a single 'debt mountain' funded by Eu wide taxes. The Eu Commission effectively running countries to stop them spending money they don't have, causing considerable political anger, within those countries.
All these are highly plausible
To add a country with £1trillion public sector debt, £3.5trillion private sector debt and collapsing tax revenues to the Euro at parity, isn't going to go down well in the rest of Europe is it?
Czechs and balances 08:46am on 17 Dec 2008 24,25

I am not blaming the Chinese and German govts for Britain problems. Both of of these countries have acted as they saw fit in their national self interest.
The point I was making was that without the mechanism of floating exchange rates helping to make goods cheaper/more expensive with the weakening/strengthening of economies, ultimately every one suffers, as is happening now.

The same is true of creating a single justice system from numerous different national justice systems,which have developed according to the histories of the individual countries and their constitutional requirements
A common Eu defence force has to reconcile the neutrality of Ireland with willingness of the British to use a fully professional armed forces. Every country has constructed their armed forces according to their willingness to fund them,how they plan to use them and willingness to go into combat.
Afghanistan, Iraq, former Yugoslavia and many others have all shown the impossibility of creating such a force

Whether the Euphiles like it or not,when push comes to shove, all members of the EU act in their own interests, regardless of others, looking only to maximise what they can get out, while minimising what they put in and that will never change

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