A European Monetary Fund
The first incentive for the EMF kite-flyers is that it would be a "European" not an "international" fund. It cannot be overstated how much European officials fear an IMF bail-out of Greece or other countries. It would not just be a humiliation; it would be regarded as a verdict of no-confidence in the eurozone. The German Chancellor Angela Merkel said: "We want to be able to resolve our problems in the future without the IMF". The Greek government, as a way of putting pressure on its EU colleagues, occasionally flirts with going to the IMF.
The second attraction of an EMF is that it would amount to a plan for when eurozone countries slide into trouble. One of the problems when Greece was struggling to finance its deficit was that the markets sniffed uncertainty over how to deal with the crisis. There was no agreed mechanism to handle rescues or bail-outs.
Since the idea was first floated in a position paper and then in comments by the German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble there has been a rush to support it. The European Commission is drawing up proposals and Angela Merkel said it was "a good and interesting idea".
But in the same comments as that endorsement, the German Chancellor was also aware of the immense difficulties in giving birth to such a fund. "The questions of course must be asked: Who pays in, how does one pay in....." All is to be argued over, but the fund will have to be substantial.
There will be those who will suggest that the fund is supported by not just the 16 eurozone members but by all 27 countries in the European Union. "That idea simply won't fly in the UK," said one British official. However the fund is dressed up it will be regarded as a bail-out body for the euro and British taxpayers are most unlikely to want to make any contribution towards rescuing a currency they have little enthusiasm for joining.
It is the recognition that any EMF would have far-reaching implications for the whole of the EU that led Angela Merkel to put down an early marker. "Without treaty changes we cannot found such a fund. So we will need a treaty change." It was a bold statement and some officials are already recoiling at the prospect. Arguments over the Lisbon Treaty lasted eight years. Outsiders criticised the EU for its obsession with structures and being inward-looking. There is simply no appetite - particularly with the French - for another round of treaty changes, but such a significant institution cannot be simply drafted in. It would need the agreement of all member states.
Beyond all of this lies perhaps the biggest problem. A fund could be seen by some countries as a ready-made bail-out facility. It might encourage irresponsibility. It was a doubt raised by Juergen Stark, a member of the top executive committee of the European Central Bank. He said it would create a perverse incentive for countries not to clean up their balance sheets properly.
"Every country is accountable for its public finances and therefore its debt," he told a German newspaper. "It would be the start for a system of financial compensation that could become very expensive, set the wrong incentives and finally be a burden for countries with solid public finances."
So some are talking about the need for tough rules and penalties for countries that breached the fiscal rules. The French aren't sure about that, but the Germans will be wary of setting up a fund that becomes a way of skirting around the current "no bail-out" policy. The IMF has shown in the past it has teeth and can be a powerful enforcer. There are doubts about whether European leaders have the spine for this. Will they act the enforcer? Or will the fund allow for fudge and drift which, of course, lies at the heart of the euro's current problems?
Behind this debate about a European fund lies a widely-held belief that if the euro is to survive in its present form there will have to be closer economic integration, and that brings with it all kinds of controversies.
The European Monetary Fund idea is recognition that the current system does not work, but as a plan it is fraught with difficulty. It is by no means a straightforward option and will come far too late to solve the crisis in Greece.
I'm 
~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~53~RS~)
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Yay...another big step on the way to the Federal state. :/
I have the feeling the Germans have had quite enough of paying for this power trip however. Perhaps this will be the proverbial straw breaking this horse designed by committee. Hope springs eternal.
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Personally I am with the Germans on this.
History of Euro shows that failing to comply with budgetary rules will not incur any consequence as long as you are a big country (eg Italy, Spain or France). Recent history shows that Greece and Italy are congenitally incapable of any financial discipline and if all else fails they simply cook the books. Spain and Portugal may also be already too far down that road.
What will an EMF do? Convince certain countries that they can merrily spend money they do not have because EMF will bail them out in due course.
What to do about the Eurozone debt problem? Nothing. It is up to each country to manage their own finances and if they get it wrong face up to the consequences - and that includes UK
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Sounds like a decent idea, but it needs to have some teeth. Proper oversight of Euro-members budgets would be a start.
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From a purely neutral perspective, this does make complete sense. Having a big pot of insurance for the Euro would be a fine barrier against the speculators and as a watchman dragging imprudent countries into line.
As long as you happy with the idea of the EU superstate....
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It it so much fun to watch the EU show....from a safe distance. It may be a Greek tragedy to the actors but it's a comedy to the gawkers like me. Kind of like looking at a car wreck on the road where a truckload of chickens have escaped and are running madly in every direction at once. All scrambling to survive but not knowing which way to turn. Of course in fact there is no where to turn, every direction leads to death. The EU countries are no more likely to survive very long than the chickens. The proposal coming now smacks of desperation. There are no viable ideas that make sense left. So we are left with the rediculous.
"It cannot be overstated how much European officials fear an IMF bail-out of Greece or other countries. It would not just be a humiliation; it would be regarded as a verdict of no-confidence in the eurozone."
Only fools have had any confidence in what has clearly been a farce from day one.
"The German Chancellor Angela Merkel said: "We want to be able to resolve our problems in the future without the IMF"."
Angel Eyes has said a lot of things. Perhaps it is time for her to stop talking and start listening. German taxpayers are trying to get a message across to her. That message is they do not want to bail out Greece or anyone else, they want to hold on to their own money. If she doesn't listen, it won't be long before she can lie back and talk to the ceiling because that will be the only thing left that will listen to her.
"The Greek government, as a way of putting pressure on its EU colleagues, occasionally flirts with going to the IMF."
In a sense they hold the trump cards at the moment. The message is; bail Greece out or it will take the Euro down with it, Greece isn't going down alone.
"The second attraction of an EMF is that it would amount to a plan for when eurozone countries slide into trouble."
We interrupt this posting for a late breaking news flash; the Eurozone countries have already slid into trouble. Ooops, just a few years too late now for a plan like the EMF. By the time it is enacted, the patient will be dead.
"Since the idea was first floated in a position paper and then in comments by the German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble there has been a rush to support it. The European Commission is drawing up proposals and Angela Merkel said it was "a good and interesting idea"."
Maybe on the part of EU leaders but not on the part of their taxpayers, not of the richer countries. The EU was not sold as a way for rich countries to bail out poor ones. This is not what they promised when all of the hoopla about it was all people focused on.
"The questions of course must be asked: Who pays in, how does one pay in....." All is to be argued over, but the fund will have to be substantial."
Guess Who! That's right. I understand in European systems votes of no confidence can bring down a government in a heartbeat. Could that happen to Germany or do they have fixed terms before she can be dumped?
"There will be those who will suggest that the fund is supported by not just the 16 eurozone members but by all 27 countries in the European Union. "That idea simply won't fly in the UK," said one British official. However the fund is dressed up it will be regarded as a bail-out body for the euro and British taxpayers are most unlikely to want to make any contribution towards rescuing a currency they have little enthusiasm for joining."
Surprise, Surprise. Referendum NO! Bailout of other countries YES! Taxation without representation. Britain never caught up to the US on that one.
"It is the recognition that any EMF would have far-reaching implications for the whole of the EU that led Angela Merkel to put down an early marker. "Without treaty changes we cannot found such a fund. So we will need a treaty change." It was a bold statement and some officials are already recoiling at the prospect. Arguments over the Lisbon Treaty lasted eight years. Outsiders criticised the EU for its obsession with structures and being inward-looking. There is simply no appetite - particularly with the French - for another round of treaty changes, but such a significant institution cannot be simply drafted in. It would need the agreement of all member states."
The treaty could be railroaded through just like Lisbon was. Rubber stamp parliaments voting for it when necessary, enactment by royal edict like Gordon Brown enacted Lisbon where possible. The whole thing could be over in a couple of weeks. All that remains is to figure out how much each German, Brit, Frenchman, Dutchman, will have to pay to bail out the PIIGS and Eastern Europe while they're at it.
"Beyond all of this lies perhaps the biggest problem. A fund could be seen by some countries as a ready-made bail-out facility. It might encourage irresponsibility. It was a doubt raised by Juergen Stark, a member of the top executive committee of the European Central Bank. He said it would create a perverse incentive for countries not to clean up their balance sheets properly."
""Every country is accountable for its public finances and therefore its debt," he told a German newspaper. "It would be the start for a system of financial compensation that could become very expensive, set the wrong incentives and finally be a burden for countries with solid public finances.""
What then, a return to the Growth and Stability Pact? But the EU court ruled that was obsolete. Remember? Remember the arguments Germany and France advanced when they didn't want to pay the billions in fines they owed? And the court agreed while nobody raised a stink about it. Why should it have changed now? Europeans don't make mistakes. To suggest that was a mistake would be to suggest that the entire foundation of the EU was a mistake. Now how would that affect confidence in the Eurozone?
"So some are talking about the need for tough rules and penalties for countries that breached the fiscal rules. The French aren't sure about that, but the Germans will be wary of setting up a fund that becomes a way of skirting around the current "no bail-out" policy. The IMF has shown in the past it has teeth and can be a powerful enforcer. There are doubts about whether European leaders have the spine for this. Will they act the enforcer? Or will the fund allow for fudge and drift which, of course, lies at the heart of the euro's current problems?"
The French and Germans "aren't sure about that? C'mon, they were the most flagrant violators of the last rules. They were the reason the Growth and Stability pact was eliminated in the first place. As soon as the very rules THEY insisted on for very good reasons, worked against the expediency of their domestic politics, they were equally vehemant bout dropping them.
"Behind this debate about a European fund lies a widely-held belief that if the euro is to survive in its present form there will have to be closer economic integration, and that brings with it all kinds of controversies."
What a joke at this late date. Sounds like Tony Blair's promise to make Europe the best place in the world to do business. That's what he said when he was the EU president. Here's another late breaking news flash. Odds makers are betting that neither the Euro nor the EU will survive much longer. It's on its deathbed and it's wondering if an asprin might help it.
"The European Monetary Fund idea is recognition that the current system does not work, but as a plan it is fraught with difficulty. It is by no means a straightforward option and will come far too late to solve the crisis in Greece."
Too bad Europeans do not have the facility to think ahead and to think clearly but instead are ruled by emotion alone. Had thay had that facility, they'd have known on day one that it would not work. But having gone through a one way door, there may be no turning back. Once you jump off a cliff without a parachute, it's too late to worry about the landing five seconds before you will hit the ground.
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Perhaps the present crisis will have a positive effect with new structures being put up to deal with these sort of thing. The euro was a political feel-good kind of project but now that it is in effect, all efforts should be made to keep it going or it is going to be a disaster not only for the eurozone but the rest of the world as well.
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This EMF idea is simply the latest effort of federalists to use the crisis of the day as an excuse for more integration. Nobody is saying the IMF is somehow incapable of dealing with Greece. The federalists are instead making half-baked emotional pleas about the IMF being American-dominated despite the head of the IMF having always been a European.
If an EMF is created, then the question must arise as as to who would bail out the eurozone should it run into collective trouble, something made more likely by the moral hazard of its explicit guarantee of a bailout to any member-state lacking the discipline to keep its own affairs in order. The eurozone would be too big as a group to be rescued by the IMF so federalists are now pursuing their pet project at the expense of greater systemic risk to the world economy. Countries outside the eurozone, including the UK, USA, Japan and China should not tolerate European doing this. As a very minimum eurozone counties should increase their contributions to the IMF rescue fund to compensate for the risk of a massive failure should the eurozone as a whole go broke.
Since a new European treaty would be required to create the EMF, the UK should take advantage of any such treaty to demand the return of powers taken against the will of the British people by the treaties of Maastricht, Amsterdam, Nice and Lisbon. As a minimum the price for the EMF should be the return of employment and social policy to Westminster control.
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Good idea providing only Eurozone countries subscribe to it. If the rest of the EU members are expected to stump up,then it must be nipped in the bud by Britain and anyone else who doesn't want to be part of the federal Franco German empire.
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"Too bad Europeans do not have the facility to think ahead and to think clearly but instead are ruled by emotion alone"
Good grief.
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it should be a eurozone fund. it should receive a joint and several guarantee from all eurozone members in proportion to their gdps. the fund should in turn guarantee a pro rata share of each member's central government debts equal to 60% of the member's gdp. any bailout granted to a member that went beyond this automatic 60% guarantee would need unanimous approval of the eurozone members. all future borrowing by a member should be subordinated (under european law) to the guarantee it has granted the emf (which would make the cost of borrowing more than 60% of gdp in the market much more expensive - a much better deterrent to fiscal recklessness than any system of fines). the emf could then carry out market operations to exchange existing member government bonds for a combination of eurozone treasuries and subordinated national government bonds. this would create a large, liquid and very high credit quality eurozone treasury market that would rival the us treasury market.
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It is also a mistake to think an EMF would solve the structural problems of the eurozone. An international fund is only a way to mop up the aftermath of a financial crisis and not a way to prevent the problems arising in the first place. If we look to the origins of the PIIGS problem we see that it is not large public debt as in Greece, but large private debt as in Ireland and Spain, where a decade of inappropriate low eurozone interest rates encouraged too much borrowing that led to a unprecedented property boom and bust. Federalists do not want to admit that putting Euro-federalism ahead of sound monetary policy leads to real-world pain in the form of boom and bust and unemployment, so instead they are seeking a European mop (the EMF) to wipe up the mess that their euro-federalism caused.
If the source of the problems (EMU) is left uncorrected and only a dysfunctional EMF introduced that encourages all of Southern Europe to believe they will be bailed out in the future, then the problems caused by putting Euro-federalism ahead of sound economics have only been compounded. The result then will only be an even bigger bust in the future. That bust will occur when French and German taxpayers realise that the EMF is not a fund for occasional use, but the beginning of an annual subsidy for Southern Europe that they are expected to pay ad infinitum. With Germany the slowest growing economy on Earth, with one of the fastest declining populations, and a 1970s manufacturing economy uniquely exposed to cost-competition from China, a time will come when this burden is simply unsustainable.
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#9 Do not worry about Marcus the Eternally Wrong too much there CS_E. He is one of our ... special contributors. I am fairly certain he is not actually a real person and is just someone out to increase hatred towards the USA. Unfortunately for him/her/it, most people are aware that most Americans are not that stupid/ignorant/eager to betray their country.
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I would not be surprised to find MA2 was actually Awesome Geronimo in disguise... ^^
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offramp;
If Europeans can think as you seem to believe, then how do you explain that at first they were sold on the Growth and Stability Pact in Maastrict, then found it was obsolete, and now find that they are deep in hot water because they didn't enforce it when they had it, then ditched it, and are now talking about fiscal responsibility of each nation in language that is nearly identical to what the Pact demanded? How so you explain the fact that it was never debated. Nothing is ever really debated in public. Absolutely nothing of importance. Not only wasn't the EU Constitution not debated, it couldn't be by design. It was made deliberately incomprehensible to anyone except determined lawyers. Those who voted for it never even read it. If that isn't the rule of emotion over reason then what is. And if it wasn't the acceptence of that principle, then what is? No they do not have the facility to think because if they did, they would have told the EU architects to go back to the drawing board when the plan was first proposed and start over again and not come back until they had a plan that made sense, that could be understood by people of normal intelligence, and would be voted up or down by referendums of the people who would actually be governed by it, not by their parilaments.
Why didn't they do this? For three reasons. One is that they never could have come up with a plan that would have worked. Second they didn't have to because they knew their passive populations would ultimately accept whatever was forced dowh their throats being entirely intimidated by government. And third because that was not their agenda, they wanted to create a dictatorial empire, not a democratic confederaton. Well now they've got their wish. Let's see them live with it.
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When will the Europhiles of this world admit that the whole "one size fits all" superstate is a total failure.
How much more evidence do they need?
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I agree that an EMF is necessary because European countries shouldn’t WANT to borrow from the stringent IMF which will interfere with the country's production, social programs, insist on privatization and cause (with high interest rates) perpetual poverty. Just look at the countries that have IMF loans: How are they doing?
SOLIDAR (Eurodad and the Global Network – together representing more than 100 NGOs in Europe) released a recent report. SOLIDAR describes the harm that has been done to El Salvador, Ethiopia and Latvia as a result of conditions the IMF imposed. It has been estimated that IMF agreements in 42 nations, have resulted in harm to 31.
The IMF, even now during poor economic conditions, tells poorer nations to increase interest rates, cut spending, privatize. What does this mean on the ground: It means your health care, education and social spending is going to be truncated; high interest rates are going to hurt if not kill businesses. You will likely be forced to produce (grow) that the IMF tells you to produce (grow) to the detriment of your economy.
IMF was supposed to reform; it hasn’t. Experience to date demonstrates that the IMF is still imposing bad, pro-cyclical conditions on many borrowers who are too poor to resist.
The proposal to set up a European Monetary Fund is a viable alternative. The EU should discuss and formulate an EMF. But with Greece struggling to put its finances in order, EU countries, especially Germany, will be reluctant. Eventually I believe EU leaders will realize that they are only hurting themselves by forcing EU countries into IMF loans.
If the so-called STUPID COUNTRIES (Spain, Turkey, UK, Portugal, Italy and Dubai – you can add Greece) - have seriously breached the EU rules on debt and GDP, they had a heap of help from the Americans with their unregulated derivative and default-swaps creating toxic debt.
Perhaps Brussels should stop the EU from trading with the US until the US regulates its financial institutions, especially its unregulated derivatives and default swaps.
In any case a European alternative to the IMF is desperately required.
Sooner or later the EU will come to that conclusion.
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MAII - (5)
You really need some theraphy.
On some occasions in the past you have actually been critical of the EU in a constructive way which has been appreciated, but really, this loudly ringing of the death bell once again is getting a bit old.
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How did the Euro manage to get it so wrong?
Who thought that "sanctions" against countries would be an incentive not to cook the books? That's kind of like saying "if you stray off the path we'll break your legs". Sanctions against a country that is already overspending are not going to solve a financial crisis they would only precipitate one, so there is no way the ECB would have the balls to apply them. Greece knew this. The rest of the countries now in trouble knew it too.
But to top it off, there is no mechanism to deal with it. Greece cannot leave the Euro without leaving the EU entirely. The Eurozone cannot kick it out. There is effectively no enforcement mechanism, there is no bail-out mechanism and there is no clean-up mechanism. The Eurozone has walked into this blindfolded with its hands tied behind its back.
How did the Eurozone not have a contingency plan? Did it's politicians really believe that all would be perpetually happy and easy in Euroland with nothing ever going wrong? The true measure of any system is not how it works when the sun is shining, but how it functions when excrement and turbomachinery meet. By the time you're up a certain creek without a paddle it's too late to be trying to design an alternative propulsion system. You need to have thought about it before you set out.
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Gavin, Frau Merkel’s statement “Without treaty changes we cannot found such a fund. So we will need a treaty change" needs to be considered with much attention. She obviously presumes that the establishment of the EMF should be conditioned to other, very severe rules, all the 27 member states have to agree upon. Otherwise, the mere idea is doomed to fail.
What I can’t really understand is the British position, namely that "That idea simply won't fly in the UK". One would deduct that the challenge we face now does not concern the Brits. Is if the Brits still consider the EU as being some kind of local market and not a political entity they should reckon with.
Generalissimo
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MarcusAureliusII
Actually, the European constitution (as opposed to the Treaty that was subsequently signed) was quite readable, if very long. I read about half of it before my eyes started bleeding and I had to stop.
It didn't get any less scary on reading it. The most terrifying part was its seemingly deliberate vagueness. This was a document that was supposed to exactly describe what the EU was to be going forward and the whole thing was so fuzzy that I ended up with no idea where my nation was supposed to finish and the EU was supposed to start.
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The IMF is sound, generally well run and open for business. There is no good reason why Greece should not look to it for help.
The implications for the Euro would be no greater than the implications for the dollar if one of the States of the USA (New York or California to take a couple of not entirely unrealistic examples)got into serious financial difficulties.
An EMF could not be created overnight. It would be expensive to set up and it would duplicate part of the capital and other costs of the IMF (There is presumably no suggestion that its Members should withdraw from the IMF). The new institution would have to build a track record and demonstrate that it had muscle. It could be no part of the solution to Greece's immediate difficulties. To discuss it at this time is a diversion that we do not need.
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Oh Yes!
Let us have yet another excuse to squeeze money out of the UK-EUropean Tax Payer!
My one hope is the next UK Government of whatever persuasion (despite the colossal financial defecit UK Citizens face) volunteers some UK Tax-payer contribution to a Paris-Berlin-Brussels inspired EMF - - it is the moment I sincerely predict an enormous, unstoppable amount of outraged UK Citizen's excrement will hit the Westminster Parliament fan - - thus ensuring no MP survives who does not guarantee UK/England withdrawal from the EU within a 12 month of the mooted UK donation.
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I tend to think of MAII as this blog's version of Jeremy Clarkson. He can be quite entertaining but you shouldn't take him at all seriously. His only raison d'être is to wind people up.
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IHOP;
The loud ringing of the death bell signifies that there is a death watch going on. You must have a bad cold or sinus condition. If you didn't, you'd smell it in the air, the stench of death is unmistakable. The circling vultures are also a clue that something or someone is not long for this world.
duckthechip;
"When will the Europhiles of this world admit that the whole "one size fits all" superstate is a total failure."
When it comes to a European "superstate" no size fits any. No such thing can exist except in the fertile imaginations of fools. They've had their way, now for the havoc it has wrought down upon all of the EU. It should be interesting.
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The EMF is likely to become the next step of European construction. It is definitely necessary and more than needed. It could be a new example of an Europe "à la carte", since it concerns mainly the Eurozone countries. Britain, as usual, is not part of it and misses the train. But the same happened in 1957, and in 1975 when the EMS was launched too. Like in those days, we read comments that sound like expressions of mere powerless wishful thinking (it will not happen, will not work etc).
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It has to be for all EU countries not just club med countries! It should include us, as well as Iceland. I don't think it will be a EMF to rescue on geographic location. It has to be a EMF to rescue at any location. I would imagine we and Iceland (North West Europe) would need it much sooner than Malta/Cyprus (South East Europe). It will only be a good a good thing and make the EU much better off economically, the current Euro set up is neither chicken nor fowl and it can be made better
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Save this, Gavin. You might want to use it for your blog title in a short while. EMF = European Monetary ****up.
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ST;
What is the value of a document that is so vague that its meaning cannot be discerned? The value is to those who will interpret it later on to mean whatever they want it to mean. That is what I mean when I say it was designed to be incomprehensible. It was around 400 pages long. Most European politicians who advocated it admitted that they hadn't read it themselves. Lisbon was fewer pages but 8000 words longer. They changed the way it was printed such as by reducing the spaces between lines to make it seem shorter.
I read the British red line opt-outs. It was in a lot of convoluted legalese jargon. Nevertheless, it was clear that these were not opt outs at all but deferrals of some provions for five years after which the UK would either comply with all provisions or face punishment by a panel on which it would not even be represented. The whole thing is a pure lie from beginning to end. This is why the UK government doesn't dare put it to a vote or even debate it. It knows it would be overwhelmingly rejected if it was.
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#17. Islandhopper1 wrote:
"MAII - (5) You really need some therapy."
Of course he/she does! But, is it not quite good therapy to express oneself on these blogs? - better that, than he/she is left to wander the streets protected only by his/her two rottweilers and pose a real risk to everyone he/she passes in the real World. Don't discourage him/her, we are providing a public service to his real World neighbours! But brevity could perhaps be encouraged!
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#18 Steve Thomas,
Spot on who were the idiots that designed the Euro in the first place?
I bet they were economists! Not even politician could have been so patheticaly dim, as to assume there would never be crisis!
I'm laughing my head off!
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For MA-II, found on a discussion of filotimo:
Marcus Aurilius writes about dignity:
"Do what thou hast in hand with perfect and simple dignity; and feeling of affection, and freedom of justice. Thou will give thyself relief if thou doest every act of thy life as if it were the last, laying aside all hypocrisy, self love, and discontent. Thou seest how few the things are, the which if a man lays hold of, he is able to live a life which flows as quiet, and is like the existence of the gods; for the gods on their part will require nothing more from him who observes these things done in great dignity."
Maybe you could get some guidance from this ?
As for Europeans not thinking, I read the proposed EU constitution up until article I.3.2. "The Union shall offer its citizens an area of freedom, security and justice without internal frontiers, and an internal market where competition is free and undistorted", whereupon I thought that such an offer is nice perhaps, but should not be in a Constitution. Many other people thought likewise, and the French and Dutch voted it down by referendum. There was a lot of discussion at the time about all this.
Since you are an American, you might do something serious about your Wall Street bankers. I read that Goldman Sachs gets sued by a Union pension fund for paying out too much money to their employees. Unfortunately, the reluctance of the US treasury in 1998 to regulate over-the-counter trading of derivatives got us all into this financial mess, since it led to the toxic mortgages and credit default swaps growing into a systemic risk. So do something about that, and act as if it is the last thing to do in your life, hence "with dignity".
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Trade needs rules and regulation as has been well demonstrated in the last two years. Regulation needs to be backed by enforceable sanctions. So logically someone needs to be responsible for the regulation and we need as a society some control and sanction over those who we permit to be in control - that is how it works (or rather it should work.)
Unfortunately we are blessed in Europe with Nation states who only cede control very reluctantly even though it is blindingly obvious that the only way things will work is through taking shared and joint control. The anti-regulators have fortunately had their time in the sun and have been shown to create only disaster and destruction.
We are unfortunately stuck without any from of global regulator with a global set of sanctions so we have to do what we can and what we can do is to take maximum advantage of the institutions that exist - make them as democratic as possible and make sure that a logical and rational set of regulation is enforced.
Alongside the EMF we need democratic control of Europe by the citizens of Europe. This cabal of elected national leaders does not work in the interest of the whole or even of their own Nations. Let the people directly elect the President of Europe and give him/her a clearly defined area of competence that is as small as possible consistent with a rationally managed necessarily shared policy agenda - as well as ensuring that there is real subsidiarity between Europe, the nation states, their regions and right down to the lowest level of government. But we do need to join together in certain areas for our joint benefit and an EMF is one such area.
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I don't why some Brit's seem concerned, or seem to think they can use this for blackmailing the rest of the EU.
It's an EMU concern, not British (well not entirely). I can't see why we would need to be involved in a treaty setting up an EMF.
P.S. Marcus, I see you've decided to dress up your usual contribution of rubbish with some flowery poetic nonsense. Kudos.
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If the EMF ever comes into existance, it will be a big step in the socialist re-engineering of the distribution of wealth as part of the EUSSR. I don't see the richer countries who will be the donors agreeing to it. They are flat on their backs themselves right now. It would take a lot of money to make a dent in the debts that have been piled up, major social upheaval to change the structural nature of it being perpetual. I don't think so. Even the UK's Labor party wouldn't go this far. It would be suicide for them.
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[OP] "Angela Merkel to put down an early marker. "Without treaty changes we cannot found such a fund. So we will need a treaty change."
Cue manifesto commitments from each of the three main parties 'for election purposes only'.
The EU and democracy: Are never seen together except *before* UK national elections.
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I am British by birth but have lived and worked in Greece for a number of years.
The whole idea of an EMF is, as many have pointed out, fatally flawed on two counts.
First, it will automatically discourage governments in difficulties from taking hard and politically unpopular measures, safe in the knowledge that there is a soft safety net.
Second, an EMF could not be an effective enforcer. As we have seen, EU fiscal rules can be re-written when they become inconvenient.
The euro is in trouble - and has no mechanism for getting out of trouble - because monetary union makes no sense without far greater political union. Personally I am in favour of this and I regard a united states of europe as an essential counterbalance to the rise of China, India and Brazil for example.
Actually the best thing for Greece would be to go to the IMF. It can be politically quite convenient to blame the big bad IMF for your domestic troubles whilst you sort things out; it would be politically much harder to kick out at an EMF.
Some commentators have noted, quite correctly, that the IMF is a blunt instrument. Greece, however, has an economy similar to that of Northern European countries in the late 50s and early 60s. A harsh short-term IMF regime could bring us back nto the 21st century with, for example, a sensibly sized public sector.
Such a move would deeply upset France and Germany, but that would be a good thing. The EU is much too inward looking and precious about itself. To succeed, as I believe it can, the EU needs to be a tougher and more pragmatic player on the world stage.
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#28
Eh? Good post. Where's the vitriol? Please try harder next time.
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There is more than meets the eye to this idea of the EMF. There must be.
Consider a curious fact: the Eurozone actually has more voting power in IMF matters than the USA. Indeed, if you have a look at the 20 largest nations, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands alone account for 17.66 % of the IMF votes. The USA only holds 16.77 %.
So there can be no sort of argument put forward which claims that the IMF does not hear arguments sympathetic to the Eurozone. The Euro, more than any currency on earth, more than the US dollar, is the strongest voice in the IMF.
And yet....... and yet the Eurozone needs the EMF. Because the IMF does not suits its purposes.
So what is the true purpose of the EMF?
Curiously, it worth looking at the stated purpose of the IMF. The IMF states that it exists in order to allow many different currencies to interact with each other in the most efficient and productive manner possible. It seeks to stabilize exchange rates and promote development.
Now the EU, and especially the Eurozone, has a very different agenda. The Eurozone seeks to eradicate a variety of currencies and do away with exchange rates.
I think is the crucial difference between the proposed EMF and the IMF. The IMF acknowledges that multiple states can have multiple currencies which can all be managed by national governments. The IMF seeks to create harmony within that international structure. Its greatest tool is transparency, and the systems of data reporting that member states adhere to.
The EU, by stark contrast, is trying to dismantle an international structure and create a super currency, and a super state. It's greatest tool in this quest is a complete lack of transparency, as we have discovered with Greece and the other PIGS.
In short, the EU elite do not want and EMF. What they want is a federal taxation system for Europe, and a federal government.
If the EU wanted to create harmony between currencies and independent nations, instead of creating a massive centralized state, it could use its voice in the IMF to achieve its aims. It doesn't want to use its majority voice in the IMF because, fundamentally, the aims of the IMF are not the aims of the EU elite.
Given that the professed aims of the EU are the same as the IMF (economic development and harmony between independent nations), one is given pause to wonder how long the lie can continue.
When will the architects of the EU just bite the bullet and tell us how they want the federal superstate of Europe to operate?
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This is the big test for the Euro. If the Eurozone countries want the Euro to truly compete with the American Dollar for 'Reserve Currency' status then this problem must be ironed out in short order. A Greek default would crush those hopes entirely. As to requiring the other members of the EU to participate in the 'EMF' I think that would be (and should be) completely unacceptable to those members who aren't using the Euro. Unless the EMF would be structured to be a 'global' competitor to the IMF it would only be used for those economies in the Eurozone. I'm not sure how they could even propose with a straight face to the UK as an example that this makes any sense. Nope... either the Eurozone countries bite the bullet and bail out Greece (and soon possibly others), or the future of the Euro is in gravest doubt. The various leaders of these countries have painted themselves into a corner by not having the foresight (even though they were repeatedly told about it) to put structures into place to work through just this type of situation.
Personally, I think the countries in Europe would long term be foolish not to 'federalize' and turn the EU into the United States of Europe. Cramming it down the throats of the citizenry without their knowledge and consent will NOT work however.
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Gavin said "So some are talking about the need for tough rules and penalties for countries that breached the fiscal rules."
This comment just shows how brain-dead the 'more europe' crowd have become. Maybe they can explain how Ireland, Spain etc. ran onto the economic rocks without breaking the existing 'fiscal rules' of the Growth and Stability pact? If those countries didn't break the rules then enforcement is not the problem is it? If bailouts are not the fix for their broken economies then recreating the existing IMF in Brussels is no a solution to the actual problems of inflexible interest and exchange rates is it?
The number 1 problem in Europe is the brainlessness of a political class for whom the answer to every problem, including those created by 'more Europe', is 'more Europe'. The Continent will continue on it's path towards irrelevence until there is a new generation of politicians who put the economy ahead of EU instituion building; who engage their brains for a change rather than falling back on the 'more Europe' mantra. That anyone could imagine that recreating an existing instituion (IMF) designed for another purpose in Brussels could be a solution to any problem other than lack of jobs for burocrats is beyond me. That there are apparently taxpayers making comments here that this instituional duplication is a good way to spend public money during a recession beggers belief. Presumably they think there is an infinite amount of money is the world so wasting it has no consequences? And these are often the same people drumming up fears of a G2 world dominated by the USA and China! Wake up guys!! The stupid do not inherit the world. They just pay more taxes to keep the dimwits in Brussels in the lifestyle they have become accustomed to.
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BluesBerry posts an interesting comment that the establishment of the "EMF" should be realised as an alternative choice to the "IMF" and its stringent imposing conditions that have evidently brought about increased hardship as opposed to relief in many countries. However, what is to prevent a future "EMF" from ending up imposing "similar" stringent conditions on its members that are seeking financial aid and assistance; and regrettably bringing about more hardship? Are we not in fact arguing over symptoms as opposed to the actual ailment?
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What is the real plan? The EUROzone issues (I should say 'so called' issues, since the EURO is still far too strong vs it's initial position) offer a good argument to attack some inherent structural weaknesses, such as the need for more financial/economic policy integration. The creation of the EMF will come with a more integrated policy making and policing, in order to avoid (official argument) that countries would become even more irresponsible because of the availability of the fund. The fund will payback itself given the enormous scale advantage the EUROzone will have for state bonds. It will definitely be restricted to the current EUROzone countries, because then no treaty changes are needed, only EUROzone countries will have to agree, and if France and Germany are in favor, who would say no? Certainly not Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland. The only country I could see hesitating is Holland. Net, the countries who all along wanted more integration will achieve it through the EUROzone, not through the EU. And everybody will be happy.
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32. John_from_Herndon
"Let the people directly elect the President of Europe and give him/her a clearly defined area of competence that is as small as possible consistent with a rationally managed necessarily shared policy agenda - as well as ensuring that there is real subsidiarity between Europe, the nation states, their regions and right down to the lowest level of government. But we do need to join together in certain areas for our joint benefit and an EMF is one such area."
There seems to be a conundrum here. The layers of government in the EU seems to go against your proposal. Some want a supra-state, some prefer a loose economic relationship. In any case the desire for an elected president by the peoples of the EU means the Sarkosys, Browns, Merrel's of the world would have to give up power to the people. It's alright for the common folk to give up their power but the suits are not inclined to do so. Hell, we can't even get term limits for congress in the US.
I reminded of the story of the fox who came to visit a bird setting in a tree. He bespoke of her beauty and pleaded that she give him one feather so he could share in her beauty. The fox repeated this day after day until the little bird had no more feathers. As she attempted to fly she fell to ground to be promptly eaten by the fox. The moral of this story.
Don't give away too many feathers!
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It is the recognition that any EMF would have far-reaching implications for the whole of the EU that led Angela Merkel to put down an early marker. "Without treaty changes we cannot found such a fund. So we will need a treaty change."
EUpris: Well whooppee!! And when the Irish rejected the Lisbon Treaty did not "EU"-lovers say that there could be no change to the treaty because that would be too complicated? Did Merkel say something like that? Do we get a referendum on this new treaty? Will the countries which, according to the German newspaper "Die Zeit", are ignoring the Lisbon Treaty actually stick to that treaty?
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http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/adrianmichaels/100029239/a-new-eu-treaty-is-a-nightmare-for-everyone/
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32. At 4:48pm on 09 Mar 2010, John_from_Hendon wrote:
" ... )
Unfortunately we are blessed in Europe with Nation states who only cede control very reluctantly even though it is blindingly obvious that the only way things will work is through taking shared and joint control. ..."
EUpris: Not at all!! It is blindingly obvious that we should not be in an organisation that gives partial control over us to people from countries with a massive, amazing tradition of corruption like Greece and Italy.
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EUPris
Hope you are keeping an eye on the previous article Blog - - there's some really enlightening contributions by our betters - - honest, it's impossible to make it up!
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Interesting picture up thete. That Greek bloke with Merkel and Sarkozy in front of him. Sarkozy's mouth apparently going. Does it ever stop? And our beloved president, van Wotsit in the background looking on with apparently no role to play.
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For EEC read EU
For NATO read EDF
For Dollar, Pound, Yuan read EUro
For IMF read EMF
For duplicity-venality-antiDemocracy read Paris-Berlin axis-of-ill-intent
For corrupt-centralised-megalomania read Brussels
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... then as you reach the moment you have lost all hope and left without the slightest tiny little quality of belief, you see suddenly Marcus commenting and it all comes as a revelation! You see the truth! You finally understand why EU HAS to go on and HAS a moral duty for the shake of humanity to prevail!
(could not keep it could I? ... but on the top of it, its true too!).
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EUprisoner209456731 - the Greek PM is not a "Greek bloke" (you can even see his face). He is only 1/4th Greek and even the latter is debatable. Back in Greece, even inside his own party they call him the "little American" - anyway half of them hate him but follow him for the profit - since he got the OK from his motherland, America. Giorgos (known as Giorgakis, little george all his life) is his US mothers' (Margaret) son. Margeret is a detestable woman and that as a character - everyone knows about that - not for not liking Greece, that is normal since she carried 100 kilos of horns from her historically unfaithfull husband, father Papandreou who would make Clinton and Miterran look like high-school virgins. Margeret lived several decades in Greece stubbornly refusing to learn to speak Greek (only the basics) and evidently has passed her hatred for the country to her son who learnt Greek from teachers, not from family (his father would never be at home anyway).
Giorgakis Papandreou has repeatedly stated - and I am not joking on this! - that the problems of little Greece are of no interest to him, that he would sell parts of the country without second thought just to avoid having to defend them so as not to spoil his sleep at night and that his work as a politician aims at the establishment of a global governlent (what EU? here we talk about about the universal Big Brother!). These are his ideals.
Now why Greeks voted for him? Simply, they didn't. As I repeatedly said even PASOK voters considere him an idiot at best, a downright traitor at worst. But one has to know how voting is done in Greece - there is a certain logic widespread which is not so stupid if you think it coldly: that whatever you vote does not matter since the party that will go on power will not do any of what it said but will simply steal, rob and follow blindly what the Americans will say... So Greeks do not vote for political parties, they simply vote for their own profit. I.e. they vote for the local MP whom consider closer to them. They visit candidates in the office! Yes I mean in person - and not just in rural regions where it is easier but even in large cities and the capital. Candidates have full organised receptions for people who come there to ask a favour, the most usual is of course "to find a job for my unemployed son who has an A-class bachelor, an honours masters and a Phd with special mention and is 2,5 years without any job.... - please do something before he leaves the country...". You find it funny? You have to see this... Greece is no US or not even a France to have a real market to absorb everyone, to seek your future you have to steal it or plead for it in exchange of your and your family's votes - none will ever reward your hard work (a reason why many Greeks in positions where such things happen, get at some point, sooner or later, discouraged and do the minimum to earn an anyway minimum salary - you have to live it to understand).
And PASOK party is famed to be by far the most successful Greek party of all times in doing favours - a thing that perhaps explains almost but itself alone (oh yes!) why a party that everyone calls utterly corrupt and even downright treacherous is getting voted again and again. People did not vote Papandreou. They voted their local favour-man expecting something out of it.
Karamanlis' ND government lost for 2 reasons:
1) Refused (or was incapable of doing lots of favours to the average voter - apart a certain cicle, close but uncontrolled even by the majority of ND high-ranking members and the PM himself Karamanlis who profited, the average ND voter saw nothing. The phrase "Galazia paidia" (the blue boys, ND's colour) was mentioned by PASOK (who has the "Prasinofrouroi", i.e. the green-guardians) as-if the blue voters would get anything... well the average blue boys got nothing and that costed Karamanlis at least a 5 to 8% of his voters who went straight to PASOK (i.e. having visited PASOK offices, talked to candidates etc., the usual business...).
2) For being just another incapable MP
.... like Simitis, like Papandreou, like Mitsotakis... in fact, the last competent political leader that the country had seen was semi-dictator president Metaxas and that is why he was murdered by the British in WWII (his death officially is attributed to medical error - yet it took doctors and extended family nearly 1 month to apprehend it, and when it was acknowledged, a minority of Greek generals already having talked with British would sign to accept the invasion of the British army (as allies) that would finally break Greece's strict neutrality in WWII calling down Hilter (exactly what the British had planned). By the way, the same ones signed the occupation of Greece by Germans - one was shot to death after the war as a traitor but others got away under the protection of the British. And it was those protected by the British that returned from Egypt to rule Greece more or less till know... among them you find names such as.... Papandreou! Wow! The world is little isn't it?
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The whole thing is so funny. A European monetary fund is being debated in all seriousness by people who haven't a clue where the money in it will come from. That there is no money to be had doesn't seem to deter them even slightly, not even long enough to slow down and ask about it. How quintessentially European. WebAliceInWonderland, move over, you have some company in your make believe world of Tsars, dachas, Queens, Kings, Knights in armor, and damsels in distrees including those who fly over the snow on an iron mortar to a hut on fowl's legs with a clock in its stomach. I'll bet there are plenty of European artists who could paint pictures of money and European poets who could put it into verse. How about a 1000 page novel about it.
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EUprisoner, I very much respect your position of wanting UK out of the EU. And given UK's special historical background and its position in the world, I would also want the same were I a UK citizen.
But you know me and my complex geopolitics - yes, and Britain is the mother of all geopolitics, if talking for the post-Byzantine world history! Ex. above I just told you what probably no-one has told you so far, that Britain knowingly aided the Nazis on some occasions, like in Balkans, for its own geopolitical games).
So I have some sort of a certain pre-conceived idea as to why Britain stays inside "seemingly against its own interest" and knowignly paying French and Polish farmers and tolerating Germans playing the bankers.
But what is your opinion (or at least the average UK citizens' opinion) on why some political circles in your country decide that UK has to remain inside the EU even if this is detrimental to its own interest?
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47. At 8:14pm on 09 Mar 2010, cool_brush_work wrote:
"EUPris
Hope you are keeping an eye on the previous article Blog - - there's some really enlightening contributions by our betters - - honest, it's impossible to make it up! "
EUpris: Thank you for pointing that out to me. I do tend just to go on to the next post. I've been told off about that in the past by Greypolyglot.
Greypolyglot! Are you still, there reading this stuff but too bored/tired/whatever to comment?
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To CBW: I hope I have now, to some extent rectified my error.
Just picked my printout up off the floor: On 13 December 2005 the "EU"-parliament voted 378 in favour and 197 against the data storage law/directive (?) (= "Richtlinie")
For laws on justice and internal matters unanimity is required in the minister thingy. So Clarke declared it to be a measure for the harmonisation of the internal market which does not require unanimity.
In the minister thingy Ireland and Slovakia objected but were outvoted. Ireland went to the ECJ. The judges there decided in Feb 20098 that the governments could choose which path Brussels used.
All this according to Die Zeit.
So my reading of this is that although the British government used a dastardly trick, most of the other governments went along with it at the time, but then refused to implement something that they had voted for.
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53. At 10:18pm on 09 Mar 2010, Nik wrote:
" ... above I just told you what probably no-one has told you so far, that Britain knowingly aided the Nazis on some occasions, like in Balkans, for its own geopolitical games). "
EUpris: Nik! It is certainly not my position that the British are perfect. I used to meet a learned gentleman in a college staffroom who believed that in the early days the British and the Americans supported Hitler because he was anti-communist. I am now in danger of using a "trick" that I have found Catholic priests using. I have at times had a go at some Catholic priest about the Inquisition. One told me that it had nothing to do with the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church in Spain would find somebody to be a heretic and hand him over to the state. The state would kill him, not the Catholic Church. Another said that some Catholics would do something wrong, but that was not the same as the Church doing something wrong. The British government has betrayed the people of the UK. If they will do that, they will betray anybody. If they have betrayed the Greeks, then I very much regret it. I consider the bombing of German cities in WWII to be a war crime.
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Nik wrote:
"But what is your opinion (or at least the average UK citizens' opinion) on why some political circles in your country decide that UK has to remain inside the EU even if this is detrimental to its own interest?"
I do not really claim to understand them. Here are some guesses.:
1) There will be those who genuinely believe that the "EU" stops war in Europe. I don't agree with them. That doesn't mean they are not sincere.
2) Some hate the Americans and/or want to be as powerful as the USA. I want to be like Switzerland. What I admire about the Swiss is a complete lack of megalomania - no triumphal arches as in Berlin, Paris and London, at least not as far as I am aware.
3) Some British politicians are just opportunists. I spoke to a senior Tory in about 1990. He told me that an Englishman could not get a fair trial in a French court. If there was an Englishman versus a Frenchman, the Frenchman would always win. He said the equivalent would not apply in the UK. This man then voted for the Maastricht Treaty. I asked myself how he could do that. He subsequently got what I believe to be a very cushy well paid post. I suspect it was his bribe. I had better not name him as I cannot prove it. Others seem to have betrayed their country and ended up with an overpaid "EU" job.
4) I suspect that others have been bribed or supported financially by continental companies or governments just as the German government has been reported as intervening in Spain in the early days after the death of Franco and the French government is claimed to have intervened to support Helmut Kohl. I have not seen that these reports have been disputed. I believe that the British system is very vulnerable to outside manipulation.
5) Many British agree with me that the "EU" stinks, but they do not agree that getting out is the highest priority. They are a disappointment to me.
That's all I can think of for the moment. I will probably switch the computer off and think of something else.
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Gavin, are you running for election? You seem to have hit the populist "truncheon the EU" nerve, better than any of the incumbents could have done!
Then again, as an immigrant into the EU, I am rather entertained by the UK itself being regularly so entertained by our (the EU's/the Euro's) perennial Collapse/Implosion/Death & Destruction scenarios.
Any predictable changes in the script for next year's chapter?
And the year after that?
No? Pity, I'll have to turn to some satirical French cartoons.
In the meantime, guess what? I'll be doing the un-populist and un-PC thing and putting my faith in the proven capacities of my local MEP.
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Nik;
Greece's problems are all America's fault. I love it. If we find life on Mars, their problems will be America's fault too :-)
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This is extremely interesting to watch from the American perspective with the drastic differences between our two systems. The United States has many states that are failing to make ends meet. I wonder how California or my home state, New York, would fair in the EU system. These states live beyond their means and in states like California which has laws against raising taxes, there is no easy solution. I may be comparing apples and oranges but I do hope the EU can pull it together. I think it would be naive for anyone to say that eventually a EU country would not have to be bailed out. It would be naive for any person to make that assumption about any country (the US or China included.) I do understand Germany's frustration just as I get frustrated when I look at who are donor states and who are subsidiary states. Ultimately, in both situations, I think the positives, at the moment, outweigh the negatives. I think this pushed my long term goal of moving to Europe back a few years.
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According to a report, 40% of Germany's roads have potholes, the result of a very cold winter. It's so bad one town is selling potholes on the internet for 50 Euros each. You get your name emblazened somehow on the pothole you buy to fix. So, given a choice, would Germans fix the potholes in their roads so they could drive their Mercedes and BMWs at high speed without breaking their axles or wrecking their front ends or would they bail out Greece if they could not afford to do both?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8556915.stm
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@49 cool_brush_work
And for UK read "The Islands and the rest", which means "We have nothing to do with your mainland troubles!"
Regards
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@ MA @WA
Further to yours @359 & @362 of the last thread, you may see my comments under nr.376. Regards, Generalissimo.
Mark, I highly appreciate your stance, but the latest steps /conserning Bulgaria/ taken by the US authorities are just another proof that I was right. Uncle Sam has not the least intention to withdraw from (Eastern Europe). Regards, Generalissimo
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@ Marcus Aurelius II - Germany has no choice but to help Greece in some form. It is in Germany's own self-interest to do so. But the help given to Greece probably won't be an overt bailout like the one American and European banks received in 2008/09, because the long-term effects of an overt bailout would be extremely harmful for the European economy. Establishing something like a European monetary fund (funded by all Euro participants) seems to me to be a reasonable way to go forward. In addition to that, there will have to be moves toward balancing inner-European trade. France and Germany are the only countries that still produce goods and export them. This will have to change.
The potholes do not have anything to do with this. Germany has been a European net contributor from the get-go. The question has never been "does Germany want to help?" but rather but rather "what is a good way of helping?"
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An EMF is surely " PIE IN THE SKY " .
Nobody has yet suggested where the money for such a fund might be coming from .
The EU is not thinking to a future date of need in 10 or 20 years , giving time to accumulate a fund .
The only way such a fund could be created is by massive additional taxation within the Euro Zone .
The crisis is Here and Now ; not enough money could be raised to bail out one country , not to mention several more in the pipeline .
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Gavin, I guess you should immediately comment the latest speech of Lady Ashton referring to South-Eastern Europe, namely her assessment that in the Western Balkans "more than anywhere else" the EU "cannot afford to fail".
It concerns directly Greece & Bulgaria (as member states), as well as Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Kosovo & Croatia.
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On subject, the IMF DID seem to help the Asian tigers out when THEY hit a rare slump in the 1990s...Remember?
They bounced back in a year...Does that mean as far as the IMF goes..well..it just depends on WHOM they help??
Stringent conditions imposed might just help SOME countries (who are in good shape financially--not that the "Anglo-Saxon" countries ARE in good shape...):)
Web Alice,
Another joke for you,
Two women were out for a Saturday stroll.. One had a Doberman and the other, a Chihuahua.
As they walked down the street, the one with the Doberman said to her friend, "Let's go over to that bar for a drink." The lady with the Chihuahua said, "We can't go in there. We've got the Dogs with us."
The one with the Doberman said, "Just watch, and do as I do." They walked over to the bar and the one with the Doberman put on a pair of dark glasses and Started to walk in.
The bouncer at the door said, "Sorry, lady, no pets allowed." The woman with the Doberman said, "You don't understand. This is my seeing-eye dog."
The bouncer said, "A Doberman?" The woman said, "Yes, they're using them now. They're very good." The bouncer said, "OK, come on in."
The lady with the Chihuahua thought that convincing him that a Chihuahu was a seeing-eye dog may be a bit more difficult, but thought,"What the heck," so she put on her dark glasses and started to walk in.
Once again the bouncer said, "Sorry, lady, no pets allowed." The woman said, "You don't understand. This is my seeing-eye dog." The bouncer said, "A Chihuahua?"
The woman said indignantly, "A Chihuahua? They gave me a freaking Chihuahua???????
:)
David
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Generalisimo,
Is Bulgaria a nice place to live? It seems very exotic to me--as an American. On Saturdays, I often watch "Rick Steves Travels in Europe."
Do not worry--not planning a move...
I think..its so hard to get into the EU as an immigrant worker. And I'm a government worker, so its hard to imagine a job for me..but,
its my dream to tour that part of the world--a dream to tour ANY part of the world, but..hey..
you have to have Dreams in your life.
On subject, is it reasonable to expect an EMF? And won't they have to take in lots of money from...someone, somewhere, soon to accomplish that?
Also, one cannot "tell a book by it's cover." Maybe Lady Ashton will become an influential figure:)
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They could stop their IMF contributions?
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@ David 68
David, I certainly have not the least intention to mislead you in what some people still believe, namely that Europe is the paradise of the planet. Of course there are countries like Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Holland, etc., where one could imagine that he’s like Alice In Wonder Land. These countries are just an exception. The remaining part of the old continent is inhabited with hard working people which cultures and standards of living are very, very different. To that matter I agree with those people who affirm that the EU is rather a Babylon tower than a normal entity. However, the time is working for Europe… if God permits.
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Is it the case that both Nickola and Carla are having affairs?
Does anybody out there know?
Are there any political parallels? I can think of some but they wouldn't get past the moderator.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tobyyoung/100029324/is-nicolas-sarkozys-affair-a-damage-limitation-exercise/
The idea that they are having affairs is consistent with something I read on the Austrian Radio website about a year ago(?).. French journalists reportedly told Austrian journalists that the "House Blessing" was hanging on the skew.
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"EU's Ashton sets out diplomatic vision "
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8559250.stm
So why does her vision count and the visions of the hundreds of millions of people who did not want the Lisbon Treaty not count?
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"EU president Herman Van Rompuy says he pities Nigel Farage..."
Yup. I feel pretty sorry for him too being stuck in that place. ^^
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"EU's Ashton sets out diplomatic vision
...
Addressing the European Parliament, Lady Ashton ..."
EUpris: So why is there no report of what any UKIP M"EP" said? Did they get thrown out, fined or suspended for telling the truth??
Why is there hardly ever any report of what any BNP M"EP" says?
There is a German word "Totschweigen." It means to kill somebody by not talking about them. Is the BBC deliberately keeping quiet about the BNP and thus acting as a propaganda channel rather than a news channel?
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8559667.stm
" ...
The President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, has said he pities Nigel Farage, the British MEP who called him a "damp rag" last month.
Mr Van Rompuy said his popularity had soared in Belgium, following the tirade from the Eurosceptic Mr Farage.
...
Mr Van Rompuy said voters appreciated politicians who kept their cool. "
EUpris: So suddenly, when it suits him, the opinions of voters counts.
But apparently the opinions of the 70% of British voters who did not want the Lisbon Treaty still do not count.
His popularity has soared in Belgium!!#
Well whoopee!! He is President of something of which the UK is part.
Would he now please take the opinions of the people of the UK seriously and demand that we get the referendum we were promised?
As for whom he does or does not pity - do I care? Do I believe him? Do I think that anything that comes out of the mouth of an "EU" apparatchik is any thing other than manipulative claptrap?
The people of Belgium count. So do the people of the UK.
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The precise facts and data that are so important not to mention the complexity of an EMF/IMF "bailout" just aren't being discussed in much detail that I've seen. It is clear that a shotgun approach won't work because Greece is merely one aspect of a much larger problem. This problem involves all of Euroland and the entire EU. But it also involves especially the other PIIGS which are a direct threat to the stability of the Euro. The crisis is not decades away giving time to create and fund an EMF but a matter of mere months. Greece owes around 6 billion Euros or 8 million dollars or thereabouts that it has to pay back soon. What is the magnitude of the entire problem, 25 billion? 100 billion? 500 billion? 3 trillion? You don't hear anything about that even without the other looming crises such as the collapse of European bank investments in real estate in Eastern Europe.
CC; the questions boil down to several. Will those countries that still have money lend it to those that will need it in the short term? Can they? Will their populations stand for it? Will the recipients cut back the waste and corruption that led to their problem in the first place? Will they find a way to produce as much as they consume and enough more to pay back the debt they have already piled up and the money that will be drawn from the EMF/IMF to get them through the immediate crisis? What specifically are their plans, not in the usual nebulously vague promises and platitudes Europeans habitually talk in but in concrete terms that will give lenders some reason to believe this isn't just more of their pie in the sky unrealistic hope that will turn out to be another lie? If they haven't got a plan already lined up that they can spell out in detail, it seems it's a little late at this date to start thinking about one. I don't think they have. I think this is just one more quick fix and they expect to let tomorrow take care of itself when it comes just the way they always do.
If theis turns out to be the case, then this massive transfer of wealth will be perpetual one way drain from those that can sustain themselves to those that can't because the level of sustenance no matter how the Greeks and others complain how poor they are or how hard they work is more than they can afford. If that is the case, the borrowers who are owed money already will show no forebearance in demanding repayment and those who could lend money would be fools to do that because they know they won't ever see it back again. This is why the whole thing makes no sense and never did. This was the deal with the devil that was entered into when Germany and France had dreams of creating a superstate to challenge the United States. Europe is not America, not in its wildest dreams. Attempting to become America was a suicidal fantasy. Now the dream is over, the bubble burst, the reality crashing down on half a billion people. They bought into it, they stood for it, they have no one to blame but themselves. If they run true to form, they will also expend much effort blamig each other instead of figuring out how to disassemble this pile of junk and head back to some sort of existance they can sustain. The mark of true losers is that when they face a crisis, they invariably take a course of action that gets them into even deeper trouble. The irrationality that got them there in the first place goes into overdrive.
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I saw George Papandreou interviewed by Charlie Rose last night. He lived in this rose tinted world that has it that Germany and France will come to Greece's rescue if Greece needs rescuing because it is in their own self interest and everything will be just fine. I wonder how he can be so sure. Since the one hour interview was only aired last night, it is not available for viewing yet. Should be within the next day or two, maybe in just a few hours. It's worth seeing the world through Papandreou's perspective from his own mouth.
http://www.charlierose.com/guest/view/2011
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So the EU is proposing an EMF (I suppose a sub-set of the IMF).
They will need a treaty change to implement this.
It has little support even before the serious discussions begin.
There is no money to put into this EMF.
This is a response to Greece's mis-management of it's economy.
Which planet do these people think they are living on?
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Here's a quiz. Now why would Angela Merckel bring up the point that a treaty will be required to create an EMF even in a crisis?
A) She knows that would take forever and wouldn't happen until long after the problems with the PIIGS have been settled one way or another.
B) She doesn't want Germany to be the only one to contribute to it.
C) She wants to let her Parliament or even her entire population vote on it and take the heat for rejecting it so she can say it wasn't her doing.
D) All of the above.
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The media have created a public perception that the west is somehow poor, or running out of money, or doing very poorly in economic terms, but there is a lot of hard data to suggest that this is not exactly right.
For example, interest rates are still at all time lows. Governments are still able to borrow money in the bond market for next to nothing.
So somebody has a lot of spare capital. I mean, the bond market is very much a supply and demand environment. And it is not only China who has capital to lend. The private sector in the west also has a vast amount of money lying around, with so little to do that it can be lent out at 2%.
That fact points to an economy which is booming. It suggests that a certain sector of the world's population is doing fantastically well.
But then again, there is no question that governments are doing horribly. Even the tight fisted german government is running unsustainable deficits. But everywhere, governments are spending huge amounts, and not taking in enough revenue in taxes.
So why are tax revenues down? One explanation is that companies are not making enough profits. Another is that so many people are not working, or are working so little that they simply can't pay much tax. Unemployment figures have been lowered by all sorts of ingenious means, but that has not done anything to increase the total wage bill upon which government can sustain its spending.
So we have a curious situation where governments are being asked to do two things: create jobs and cut spending. These two things are 100% contradictory. If government cuts spending it increases unemployment. If it spends money to create jobs, it must increase its borrowing and expand its deficit.
Obviously that puts government folks in a bind, and they are feeling the pinch. So are the legions of unemployed.
But coming back to the bond market, we find that some folks are doing amazingly well. They have piles of capital lying around, so much that they can afford to lend to greece at a mere 6.7%.
All in all, we see a world where those working with financial products are swimming in money, and those who manufacture things can't sell them because so many folks don't have jobs, and therefore the disposable income to buy the products that might be manufactured.
I see this scenario as entirely logical, and absolutely what one ought to expect when financial experts control government policy. All the wealth in society has gravitated towards the financial folks, and everyone else is caught up in a downward spiral of debt and poverty.
This scenario only makes no sense if you start with the premis that the best thing for everybody is for the bankers and the investment class to control government. Then you find yourself contemplating with wonder as the financiers get ever richer as the rest of society grows poorer.
But if you abandon that premis, and consider the possibility that financiers are only out to enrich themselves, then everything makes perfect sense. Financiers are controlling government because they can, and because they can they are using government to make themselves richer and richer. The fact that they are destroying the welfare of everybody else in the community, government agencies, industrialists and workers alike, is a curious side effect.
What i find most strange is that if you ask the financiers whether they are out to enrich themselves or to serve the wider community, they'll tell you outright that they exist to enrich themselves. Corporate law actually requires company directors to serve the interests of their shareholders, and not to consider the welfare of the wider community. That is, to put it bluntly, the whole point of being a privately owned business.
And yet there are a few bankers who claim that they exist to serve the welfare of the wider community. These are the folks who proclaim that the true role of banks is to "provide liquidity to the market" , and that banks do this as a crucial social service. Without which, the thinking goes, everyone would starve and the world would grind to a halt.
Now in terms of the political philosophy being debated, what we have here is the argument that feudal oligarchy is preferable to democracy OR socialism. Let us be honest: if society depends upon the capital of the oligarchs, and if it is therefore right for them to control government, then we are saying that feudal oligarchy is the best form of government.
In this sense, western society has regressed to several centuries before the cold war. We do not argue about whether liberal democracy or socialism are the best forms of government, but rather we watch as our feudal lords (those who are too big to fail) organize government to increase their private wealth.
And if you think that is too strong, ask yourself what the EMF is intended to do, and whose interests it is intended to serve.
And I do not mean the theoretical argument that it would serve everyone because by assisting the bankers it would therefore help everyone. I mean in the short term, who would the EMF serve?
Clearly, it would serve the bankers. The investors. Those who have enormous amounts of money right now, whilst governments are going broke and young people can whistle for the chance at a job. That is exactly who the EMF would serve. Instead of taking a bath in greece as that nation devalues its currency, the investors would be rewarded with funds channeled through the EMF. And those funds would come from the taxpayer.
The soviet union had a representative democracy where no matter who you voted for, you ended up voting for a communist party member.
The western world has a representative democracy where no matter who you vote for, you end up voting for someone whose entire career is funded and sponsored by the financial community.
Neither of these systems are democratic, and both are feudalism dressed up as something else.
I submit that we, and I mean we in the widest sense of that word, need to decide whether government is a prize for bankers and communists to fight for, or whether it belongs to the people.
There can not be representative democracy. There can only be democracy, or orchestrated representation.
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@ Marcus Aurelius II - for as long as the European Union has existed, there have always been those who said that the end of the Union was near. The Union is now around 50 years old and each new generation of people has a few people in it who predict te imminent collapse of the EU. One part of me always hopes that people like you are right, but I'm not holding my breath.
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DemocThreat
Re #80
That was an impressively reasoned piece essentially ascribing all the World's troubles to Financiers/Bankers, i.e. the Money Men, sometimes known as Tom Wolfes' 'Masters of the Universe'.
I actually think a near equal allotting of blame for the World's precarious situation can also be laid at the door of Governments - - not one particular sort either, i.e. not just the wicked capitalist 'west' - - it seems to me that the mega-Oil-rich Middle East Governments, the Governments of the Pacific Rim and sub-continent India plus China going for colossal expansion-profit-taking over the last 2 decades have had a very significant part to play in a lot of the World's ills.
Ironically, given the parlous economic condition of Russia until mid-way in the last decade it is probably the least to blame for the debacle!
Africa & most of South/Central America would seem to share the same limited role as Russia.
Yes, I do include the UK/England at the heart of the difficulties: Though I'm bound to say as off-shore Islands of 60 million it can hardly have had as much effect as some others by its abandonment of a manufacturing base and gross neglect of sensible Financial-Investment regulation etc.
What it did, to its shame, is use its Financial resources & reputability to press ahead with de-regulation and venal investment policies that encouraged other, less skilled and possibly even more acquisitive emerging Nations to follow its lead.
Which brings us to 'old EUrope' and essentially that part of basically the hedonistic pecuniary creation of 'big-Government/big-Business' that is the supra-National economic initiative called the EUropean Union. This political construct as an entity has utterly done away with all its old customs & traditions of 'service', 'accountability' and 'responsibility': In a desparate, greed-driven, hunt for the retention of a Financial-Economic pre-eminence the EU has done away with the principles of Citizens' Rights & Responsibilities that took over 1,000 years to attain. Its Citizens could quite easily have enjoyed a reasonable standard of living and a reasonable assurance of the so-called 'good life' without being dragged into a political-economic-judicial one-size-fits-all union that simply was not required. A supra-National 'union' that twists and connives at every financial ploy to hide the inevitable stagnation such a suffocating anti-Democratic/anti-entrepreurial centralised blanket brings to National economies.
Thus the EU is an exact example of the "..orchestrated representation.." in which the Citizen, Industry and Government are subborned to the requirements of Financiers, Bankers... one can say, Masters of Brussels!
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@79 MAII
answer to your quiz: None of the above
Merkel's statement has to do with the notion of a two-speed-Europe. You will remember that when some countries within the EU wanted to huddle together (before the Nice/lisbon traety) for a faster integration (e.g. Germany, France?...), leaving the other EU countries at status-quo (e.g. UK, Denmark,..) the latter complained that this wasn!t allowable. Well, Merkel knows that that risk exists again, so she's making a statement about a new treaty needed if this were to be an EU initiative, and the UK (and some others) will obviously say 'NO'. Merkel will be very happy with that answer, as she will say: sorry, but this time we need to move forward to safeguard the EUROzone, so we will do it as a EUROzone initiative that doesn't need any treaty. As an interseting side-point: if countries like the UK would have allowed a Europe at two speeds (of integration), there may never been have been a demand for the Lisbon treaty.
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@democracythreat,
While I fully agree with your analysis, I just fail to see what you propose us to do. OK, you have proven that the system is against the people. How can people react?
I'd like to hear your thoughts in that.
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One thing nice, lately, here at the Gavin blog is the LACK of really negative views of the USA posted lately...BUT, here is one reason to dislike an American..
My latest conclusion being--as an American:
I do feel that the "West," including the USA and Britain, is in some great economic danger--very vulnerable to this crisis in Greece.
What is needed in the EU I'm (only slightly) afraid, is a MUCH closer coordination of governing rules concerning all economics in countries in the European Union.
and NOT just the "Eurozone" (wow, a new noun to use in conversation)
Sorry, EU Priz, but THE UK needs to get off its butt and either join the Eurozone OR
"Please be silent"...or
Do Something Constructive--for a change. The UK's superior "I'm not with the EU, but just of the EU" attitude is tantamount to a bystander's criminal insensitivity and inaction at the scene of a tragic disaster.
This crisis will not save the Pound--it will only insure economic disaster in Europe AND THE UK, sorry,...
if this goes on...what will be Britain's future??
I'm sorry EUPriz, CBW, Freeborn John, and other British anti-EU guys and women. But your stance is morally indefensible--my emotional, but strong feeling and thought.
From now on, I'm at least a very concerned observer, fearing for MY future..
and the UK people here just sitting on the sidelines, eating their movie popcorn... enjoying the action, while this affair engulfs Europe, sigh,
seems not an admirable action.
Truly sorry to deliver a jeremiad:)
Oh and Marcus, being a proud concerned citizen of the USA,.. don't you think that this is a good time to refrain from your fun, but rather cru-ell "baiting" of Europeans?
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David
Re #85
"... your stance is morally indefensible.."!
Ah, you are concerned with the 'goodness/badness' of my character (& others) for opposing the EUropean Union.
It is a pleasant though qualified thought that you, David, find it necessary to evoke 'morality' as a counter-argument to my 'political'-'cultural'-'historical' opposition to a supra-National entity.
The constraint upon my thoughts about your adjuring us 'anti-EU' is that you singularly fail to present evidence of the moral dissipation we are supposedly suffering from and for which support of the EU would bring us succour!?
'Emotional' you maybe - - concerned for your future no doubt - - believing in & placing trust in a pan-EUropean institution and its Currency as a method of reassuring yourself all will be well just stretches credulity to a new level of inappropriateness.
Quote, "..crisis will not save the Pound..".
To which 'crisis' do you refer: Is this the crisis of a Fiscal defecit - - The UK, USA, EU, worldwide defecit? Crisis of EUro-zone support for Greece? Crisis of confidence in the EUro? Crisis of USA-UK-West capitalism? Crisis of over-producing & undervaluing (Yuan) China?
Quote, "..bystanders criminal insensitivity and inaction at the secene of a tragic disaster.."
To which 'bystanders' do you refer: Is it the USA and/or UK, the non-EUrozone EU Nations, the EUrozone Nations?
So, am I to understand it is morally reprehensible that USA-UK have stood back from aid to Greece?
Surely that is what the 'pro-EU' have been in favour of all along? Brussels EU, especially that Paris-Berlin access have long had a foreign policy implication to reduce American influence and to resist the UK's laxer attitudes to 'ever closer union'!?
Since when has the 'tragic disaster' been the 'moral' issue on which the UK should now alter its standpoint in order to suit the EU?
What is there that is 'moral' in outlook about the EU? Especially, the Paris-Berlin connivance at Greece's decade long double-accountancy just so they could maintain the fiction of 'one-size-fits-all' beloved EUro (& zone)?
What would be 'moral' about the UK Government at this late stage abandoning its Fiscal-Economic policies when the Isles' Citizens already face mountainous debts?
You have a strange inerpretation of 'morality': It is your entitlement, but please spare me your admonitions about my ethical and moral grounding in what is 'good' & 'bad' for the United Kingdom - England.
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In terms of what can be done by ordinary people in order to rectify the problems created by systems of representation, I am hesitant to offer an opinion. It is one thing to look at a scenario and analyze it. That can be done with objectivity and rationality. I good writer can describe how events have changed over time, simply by describing what he sees.
It is another thing entirely to profess the wisdom to know how to change events in the future, or to know what behaviour to proscribe for others. That requires a certain faith in one's own ability to know not only what one has witnessed, but also how the systems work, and indeed how people affect systems by their behaviour.
For myself, I know what I have seen, but I have only opinions about how systems operate. And as to how people influence systems, I am deeply cynical and pessimistic, which produces predictions about the future which are not worth articulating.
So, all i can do is hope that humankind will advance towards real democracy, and that citizens in western countries will begin to hold political parties in utter contempt, and that they will demand the right to vote on laws, and not for representatives.
How that might happen, I have no idea. For every possible path towards that eventuality, I can accept that there are numerous obstacles and legitimate reasons for humankind to fail.
I think the best that anyone can do is to retain a faith in the wisdom of the individual, and to reject tribalism.
If that spreads, great. If it doesn't, then human are really no more intelligent or dignified than bees, or any other hive animal.
But I would repeat that, in my view, the problem with our system is not bankers. Bankers are fine, and banking is a legitimate occupation. The problem is when the political system allows itself to be overcome by bankers. That is the fault of the politicians, and particularly the party system.
That was the same fault as was found in the soviet union. The party failed the people, because it was vulnerable to exploitation by greedy, selfish, dishonest people. Hence, we need to do away with party power. We need to give the power of legislation to the people, and take it away from the party.
How? Who knows?
If it happens, great.
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CBW,
It's just a mood I'm in,
BUT,
Yes, the people have the power to change things, by protests, strikes (well some of us--Im in govt work, so not me--striking) and proactive thoughtful actions driven by ones own interpretation of the facts..as inividuals..per DT..
One way you could help Greece is by transferring all your hedge fund account savings to government savings bonds...though all that could achieve would be for the future.
That is my tentative thought for the near future ...this month?
I realize that might make me More accountable for govt actions. But, I've grown weary of inaction and debate..
So sorry for singling out yhe UK. We in the USA are as responsible as anyone--our financial institutions and stalled, by afraid Democrats, reform of our SYSTEMS.
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Since there are some speculations here, which rather express some wishes of the writing instead of the intention of for instance chancellor Merkel, I shall mention a couple of things from the economic section of today’s edition of Frankfurter Allgemeine (the German newspaper close to the exchange in Frankfurt):
On the background of the Greek crisis Germany and France would like to have more internal control in the Euro zone. Angela Merkel says that much energy must be allocated to this question after a meeting in Berlin with the leader of the French government Francois Fillon. Both are advocates of an EMF and said that treaty changes would be necessary, as Mr. Hewitt also writes in his article.
The chairman of the ECB, Jean-Claude Trichet, does not turn down the idea of the EMF. (It probably means that he is not enthusiastic, but realise he cannot go against it.) He would like to know more about the details, which might be a hint to problems, and test the suggestions. Another leader in the bank, Jürgen Stark, has argued against the EMF, as has the leader of the German central bank, Axel Weber.
The construction so far has been a common currency and national responsibility for own economy. It is obvious that the bankers do not want to leave this model, but also that leading politicians feel - or fear - that it is necessary.
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I wonder if MarcusAureliusII has ever been to Europe (or even left the US)?
With the current implosion of the US economy and the cultural, diplomatic and military decline of the US I would have though there would be ample domestic issues for MAII to contribute his considerable acumen towards?
Or could it be that MAII is frightened that the world is changing and the US Empire is declining after only 60 years?
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@CBW
Re "What is there that is 'moral' in outlook about the EU? Especially, the Paris-Berlin connivance at Greece's decade long double-accountancy just so they could maintain the fiction of 'one-size-fits-all' beloved EUro (& zone)?"
Now now. It was impossible for you to say in hindsight that a referendum on slavery in the 1860's in the southern US states would have a majority.
But you can claim now that the double accountancy by Greece was allowed and endorsed by Paris-Berlin!
Not only do you state things you can not know, they are highly unlikely as well given the political reality of those and the current days. It again shows you don't know much about the history of European integration.
But don't be bothered in spreading your evil-corrupt-venal-conniving Paris-Brussels-berlin axis discourse on this blog. Afterall, populists are never much bothered with facts are they? Good on you!
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Guys, many of you have seen my messages about the current Greece-related crisis. Many of you have disagreed with my viewpoint that we have a multilevel case where it is not just about Greece's bad financial situation (that has been anyway the case for as long as I live in this futile world haha), but it is about the regions' geopolitics and the fight of US against Russia with EU being helplessly in the middle.
Lets get again to the points:
1) ND right wing part government signs with BSP socialist party in government in Bulgaria for the hugely immense project Southstream, in 2008.
2) In both countries kids are murdered and people are out in the streets clashing with police.
3) Greece suffered in 2007 and 2008 3 times more summer fires than the normal, for the first time with many casualties.
4) Bulgaria has received a considerably bad press in 2008 (eg. mental institutions and such as-if the international press would ever really care about such things...)
5) In 2009 Bulgaria had anyway elections - pro-US populist Borisov wins
6) In Greece the ND party can vitrually not govern with 80% of press against it, with real and unreal scandals rising up, with the deaths of kids and people from the fires and such etc. sudden elections and PASOK led by Giorgos Papandreou (a man voted for around 10 years as the least capable to govern) wins.
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From there on we have:
1) He declares the deficit from 8% (the real is around 10%) to 12,5% but he had to add future interests to the mathematic formula (more an alchemist's formula... you know, the universe's conspiracy to achieve what one wants...and such...) - thus knowingly provoking himself the crisis around Greece.
2) Mr. Papandreou declares the talks with the Chinese over the leasing of Greek ports as void
3) He freezes along with Borisov the Southstream to the dismay of Russia
4) To foresee a return to the above, he initiated with Borisov an alternative pipeline project to provide the 2 countries liquified gas brought from Saoudi Arabia of course at double cost, much to the ruin of Greek economy (if compared to the gains it could have with Southdstream)!
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Now... just a couple of days ago...
1) Mr Papandreou, a US-citizen anyway, visits Obama
2) Obama and Clinton praise him with all the good words and say that Greece can always count on the US!
3) The US state department decides to lift the visa imposed on Greek citizens visiting the US - it was I think the only state of at least the old-legue of EU countries that was imposed that.
----------------------
I mean can't it be that obvious? And what is amazing is that:
1) US many many years back had jusitfied the visa on Greeks with the justification that Greeks are far too friendly with the Arabs (eg. Palestinians, Libanese, Syrians, Libyans etc.) and their country is a net full of big holes in terms of anti-terrorist security, no matter if the Greek governments do try to participate in the action.
2) However, also due to the EU paraplegic politics in the security and immigration issue, Greece came from guarding quite effectively its borders, to being flooded with 100,000s of, weirdly uniquely muslims (i.e. non muslim immigrants seems to snub Greece, which is strange since Chinese and Hindus are half the people on this planet!)... so not only Greece did not become better in terms of security but it is actually a fence-less lawless land where the easiest thing is to pass weapons, bombs, even nuclear material - you can do virtually anything. The only thing that protects Greece from islamic terrorism is that for now it has not provoked any tension and tries to avoid such, but technically its failure in safety can be used to launch attacks against other EU countries which are targetted.
3) The vey Mr. Papandreou plans to give full citizenship and even locality (i.e. recognised as Greeks, not only as Greek citizens) around 200,000 illegal immigrants. This situation will simply explose the aforementioned security risks for the country.
4)... not to mention that, no matter what is your point of view on the issue (and I myself is a cosmopolitan too), the 200,000 illegal immigrants will not enter the legal market the next day just because of becoming citizens. They will continue to work either they want it or not in the black market (often in deeply illegal activities), and on the the top they will be a huge added burden in the already failed social security and national health systems. I.e. Greece's financial problems will explose, and Greek legal working people will be asked to sacrifice their anyway restricted rights even more to continue this situation.
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So you ge the point:
1) US does not care about the security of Greece, the regions or EU. Quite the opposite, it undermines it methodically. It also has nothing to do with aiding Greece, it undermines it on practically every serious issue. It supports Turkey, FYROM and Albania on every aggressive move and funds their propagandas (if not officially then circles within US - do not remain only in the official declarations, the bulk of the work is down below the surface) and it opposes Greece's strategic financial deals with other countries imposing the anyway ruined country to sign for energy deals of practically double the price...
2) Mr. Papandreou is a US citizen. He serves US interests in the region which are donwright against the interests of Greece and the EU in general. There is no hope that having him there, would convince the US to give something in exchange to Greece. If US had anything to give to Greece it would had done it 50 years now already. They only thing the US can give to Greece is postponing the military attack of Turkey... and guarding it as menace for future "wrong moves".
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You should understand the importance not only of an EMF, but also of an EDF...
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@92 Nik
Very well said. As long as the EDF is just a dream, we are condemned to live in that reality...
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The problem is that we can't wait more. Right now there are - as far as I say - 3 countries whose territorial integrity is threatened to different levels of risk of course. 1 is UK being threatened by Argentina, another is Spain occasionaly threatened by Maroccon in its city in Africa and the other is Greece - the big time issue:
1) It is threatened by Turkey on an overall war on all fronts. It goes without saying that a Turkish invasion is followed by large scale bombing, all sorts of war crimes and finally ethnic cleansing.
2) FYROM refuses to recognise Greek sovereign on ALL north Greece (practically it is the 1/3 of Greece) and officially it has a not-even-hidden agenda of exploiting any opportunity (e.g. a war between Greece and Turkey) to attack in the form of an invasion of guerillas or any other form the Greek soverignty.
3) There was a Kosovar Liberation army. Now there is an Epirus Liberation army (armed gorups!) that demands practically all of Greek Epirus down to Peloponesus (on the basis of the existence of muslim Ottoman Albanians in the previous centuries - a kind of the equivalent of Scottish asking "back" India and Pakistan included because there were many Scottish soldiers serving the British Imperial army there...!), practically all western Greece including lands where the ancient oracles of Dodone and Delphi are, just to put you in the context. It is not yet the official position of Albania but they have not done anything about either, a kind of keeping it in the freezer to get it out when it is time to eat...
The only civilised country that Greece borders is Bulgaria, an EU country that ironically suffers from similar geopolitical attacks (luckily for them, less than us), as Turkey cites the presence of about 1 million muslims in Bulgaria (1 in 8) as a reason for it to interfere inside Bulgraria.
The EDF is more than a necessity. It is the only way to go forward. And do not think that it is about wars and calling other Europeans to fight for us. First, I am not saying that there will be necessarily another war (not that it can be ruled out). But as Clausevitz said, war is simply the extension of states' multilevel politico-financial antagonism, so if you don't have the army, you just will not have the financial gains expected - it is just a circle. And if the EU is all about finance, that directly leeds to the EDF.
And then just like Britain can deal with 10 Argentinas alone, and Spain with 10 Moroccos, Greece can deal with 1 Turkey easily BUT ONLY if it has at least a political backing form the EU. Cos Turkey will attack ONLY if it has the full backing and pushing from the US as well as a passive, submissive approach by the EU. Alone it will never try to do it knowing that in such a war, it will be crippled too (most of its industrial capacity and population is just next to Greece - while in the east there are always 20 million Kurds (1 in 4 Turks is not a Turk but a Kurd - if the 1/3 of them really rebel, that leaves Turkey to deal with 7 million Kurds, i.e. 1 in 10, tough job) waiting the right time to get back to their arms... things are not simple for Turkey either...).
An EDF is simply a nice deterrent to others having aggressive desires. And most ineterstingly it is the best recipe to defend not only EU sovereignt but EU business as well as reducing the countries' military budgets while increasing the EU production of local EU-produced modern weaponry.
At the end what else you want? Protection of territory, proteciton of businesses and financial interests and at the same time less military expenses while supporting cutting edge defense industry in the EU. Can't it be more obvious than that...
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@94 Nik
Nikolay, the problem with FYROM started with the discriminating, anti-Russian decisions the Berlin Congress of 1878 took. Bulgaria was divided in three parts: South Thrace and Vardar Macedonia /as a pure geographical region with predominantly Bulgarian ethnos/ went back to the Ottoman Empire; Northern Thrace was attached to Turkey as a vassal principality. The remaining part of the newly liberated Bulgaria /including the Sofia region and the Danube plain/ was relatively independent with its constitution/army/anthem/parliament etc. The British/Prussians feared the proliferation of the Russian politico-economic influence in the Eastern Mediterranean through the thankful orthodox Bulgarian new state and through the neighbor orthodox and thankful Greece. Needleless to say, their fears were logical. Both Greece and Bulgaria would welcome the Russian presence in the region as a guarantee of the status quo. Alas, the history followed another path…
In a word, the FYROM people are in their crushing majority of Bulgarian origin. However, they do not recognize it thank to the continuous assimilation policy of the Yugoslavian authorities. In the mean time, the Albanians of FYROM, of Kosovo, of Greece and of Albania have proclaimed their firm intention to “reconstruct’” what they call now “Great Albania”. You may imagine Nikolay what disastrous consequences for the peace in the Balkans that foolish, unrealistic idea could have.
What I personally see as a possible political weapon Bulgaria & Greece could use, is the simple fact that both FYROM and Albania are applying for an EU membership. If our two governments are able to join their efforts, we can tell our “good neighbors” and to their supporters the conditions of their adhesion to the EU. You see the point?
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@Jean Luc
These are most interesting days for the European union. It is too early to evaluate things, but a list of events shows:
1) Lady Ashton makes a temporary account of her efforts so far concerning a foreign policy of the EU, on the background of the division among European NATO-members as a consequence of the US security policy.
2) On the background of the Greek crisis Chancellor Merkel says after a meeting with the French PM that changes of the treaties seem necessary.
3) While opinion poles show that it is not the case with the British electorate Gordon Brown declares by a press conference together with president Sarkozy and weeks before a general election in the UK that Britain is at the heart of Europe. France and GB do not agree, not yet at least, in the matter control of the finance sector and prevention of new crisis.
4) The countries of the Euro zone are preparing a bail out for Greece. The rest of the member countries are not contributing.
I think we have some interesting weeks before us.
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I am getting so sick of Greece and other nations arrogantly dismissing other nations and their legitimate concerns and claims as "uncivilised".
1.) There is the the question of Macedonia. In an unbearably conceited way, some Greeks have said that it is an "insignificant country" that "has never existed before" and claim it is threatening Greece's sovereignty. The obvious reply to that is: How significant is Greece? How long has Greece existed? Greece is a young nation but it arrogates to itself the history and culture of an ancient civilisation, only because today's "Greek" live amid the crumbling ruins of that long-lost civilisation. If modern Greeks, who, like the Turks, are effectively descendants of the Ottomans, can create a myth about themselves of being the descendant of the ancient Greece of Pericles, then why should Macedonia not create the myth of being the Macedonia of Alexander the Great and Cleopatra? As for the "threat" coming from Macedonia, if it is really as "insignificant" as perceived in the eyes of that very significant regional superpower Greece, then what is there to worry about?
2.) Who does Cyprus belong to? Some people, in an unbelievable display of arrogance and self-righteousness, have accused Turkey of wanting to steal territory from Greece that does not belong to Turkey. This presupposition insinuates that Greece has a title to all of Cyprus, Turkey has none and that this should be accepted as given. In my opinion, the international community has been very unfair to Turkey in this respect. Turkey and Greece, two remnant nations of the Ottoman empire, have a land dispute, as happens so often, when great multi-ethnic civilisations fall apart. The international community has swallowed myth that today's "Greece" is somehow a natural continuation of ancient Greece and/or the Byzantine empire hook, line and sinker. The facts on the ground are much more complex and Greece has no more title to Cypress than Turkey. Perhaps it should become an autonomous region under the auspices of the international community so that people from northern and southern Cyprus can mingle and over the centuries carve out an identity uniquely their own, so that they do not feel compelled to consider themselves Greek or Turkish.
In conclusion, this kind of neo-"hellenic" regional muscle-flexing and chauvinism angers me and I am sure I am not the only one. The mendacity, unbelievable arrogance, decadence and self-pity shown in the Greek press and by Greek consumer groups at the time there was a small disagreement between Germany and Greece about whether or not it would be wise to bail Greec out was just a precursor to what I see as a long-term political movement whose aim it is to establish "Greece" as the only country in the Balkans that has a say in the region, free to lord it over all the other countries. The so called "descendant" of ancient Greece has ambitions to make the myth complete.
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Chris camp. You have shown repeatedly your arrogance and sheer contempt for Greeks so trying to accuse us of that is simply hopeless - let alone your deeply racist comments about Greeks deriving from Ottomans (really? how do you establish so?).
But first of all let us define the term civilise countries. Let us see the countries you consider civilised:
1) Turkey - the mother of all genocides, the country that inspired Hitler in its final solution and the only country in the world that managed in the course of 3 genocides to exterminate and/or ethnically cleanse 40% of its population - around 7 million christians (3 million Greeks 3 million Armenians and 1 million Assyrochaldeans out of which 50% of Greeks and Armenians and around the 90% of Assyrochaldeans simply did not live to tell the tale...).
And the tale continues up to our days. Fascist state that completed the ethnic cleansing of even the last Greeks of Konstantinople with the horrible pongroms of 1955, with its invasion of Cyprus and ethnic cleansing and of course with the 30 years old now war against the 25% of its own population, the Kurds (imagine even muslims suffer inside it).
Is it Greek arrogance? Or are Armenias, Assyrochaldeans, Bulgarians, Serbians and pretty much every known christian group that lived near them alongside muslim Kurds that are arrogant chauvinists? Seems quite improbable to my eyes. The fact that US and UK consider them staunch allies in the region does not term them as civilised. They are of the most aggressive countries and nations right now on the planet and have a long way to walk until they are considered civilised.
2) FYROM: A country born out of mad croato-yugoslav dictator Tito to channel the immature Bulgarian nationalism of Bulgarian people of FYROM that was fiercely anti-Greek into a transformed regionalism that served their purposed of raiding and eventually conquering the south, i.e. the Greek region of Macedonia, the real one. These people will stop to nothing and shamelessly go on their propaganda not only teaching they are the hypothetic nation of macedonians (take aside this ridiculity) but hanging maps of their country telling their kids they have to somehow take Greek and Bulgarian lands. They are currently in Europe the only country that officially in its public education system systematically teach the aggressive annexation of neighbouring countries' territories. This does not classify them among civilised countries, especially when they will go up to amazing lengths of terrorising their own people in not remembering even their own Bulgarian-conscious grandparents let alone their own Bulgarian history (FYROM is a Bulgarian land where actually the capital of the Bulgarian kingdom was, we speak about the heartland of the Bulgarian nation). Certainly not civilised. They have a long way to walk too to get civilised.
You think it is about Greeks hating them? We do not mind them, we are in our fatherland, they are in their lands, we only mind them wanting to steal our names and history, denying our own history as a first step to coming out and claiming our lands.
They do not do that only to Greece but also to Bulgaria. Ask Generalissimo he is Bulgarian, he knows best.
3) Albania. The country is not aggressive by itself. But with Albanian populations in Kosovo and FYROM as well as recent (in the last 15 years only) immigrants in Greece, whose society - at least partly - has fallen in the loop of newly found nationalism, creating an equally amazing pseudo-past linking Illyrians (a tribe that lived in the lands of Croatia, Bosnia and Montenegro actually!) to anything that moved, and whose one group practically demands all western Greece down to Pelopoenesus on the basis of previous Ottoman conquests (Ottomans in Greece were mainly Albanians) which is as logical as Scottish demanding Uttar Pradesh region of India because in the 19th century there were Scottish soldiers serving in a nearby British military base there.
Albanian up to 1990 was certainly not a civilised country. By 1990 it tries to become. It is not mature yet.And it will take longer as plenty of Albanians fall in the trap of aggressive nationalism going around threatening others with territorial claims. Unlike FYROMians, it is true that not all Albanians abide to that, but unfortunately due to their complexes of inferiority especially towards Greeks something the Greeks are in no sense responsible as Greeks did not impose communism and its related poverty to Albania, Albanians can easily fall in the trap of ultra-aggressive natiolism, and the only thing needed is a spark. That is how it goes.
Even if you say that the Albanian state is civilised (which still is debatable), the Albanian nation is certainly not mature yet.
As for Greece, what can I say? You rant is relentless. What is is this "neo-hellenic" racist comment attributed to Greeks as if it is a fascist term for describing the Greek nation? This is pure Stalinist propaganda! Hellenic is just another term for Greek. Nothing else. There no new no old. There just Greek. Nobody speaks of ancient Greece here you do cos that is how you want to distort the discussion, put us in the defensive of our own culture then accuse us of Nazi-like people and such... But it is you saying all that not us. We know very well where we come from, we do not need you to tell us we come from Ottomans (what a racist comment! I cannot believe it appearing here...
... but then I only need to read your views about Cyprus, an island that up to 1974 wast 92% Greek and 8% mulsim (many of whom were ex. Greek cypriots turned muslims in the past) prior to the invasion, massacre, ethnic cleansing and forced emmigration of 1000s of Turkish from mainland given the homes of Greeks, who now account for the 35% of the population on the island... You do not care abou that. Your only anxiety is to try and not hear that the island is habitated by Greeks, Greeks in Cyprus have to be forced to forget their own nation and create a new just because that is the way you prefer it.
You have dangerous views Chris Camp. You really have very aggressive, deeply offending and dangerous views.
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Chris Camp, I do need to come and respond directly to your rant about Greeks not being Greeks. We are the only nation in the world with such a long written history, which makes us the best monitored nation in the world. If we do not know about Greeks, then we know nothing of any other nation in the world.
However I will let Henry Kissinger reply to your rant. If you have the slightest understanding you will understand that if little Henry believed really what you believe, he would never had said anything of the following:)
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The Greek people are anarchic and difficult to tame. For this reason we must strike deep into their cultural roots: Perhaps then we can force them to conform. I mean, of course, to strike at their language, their religion, their cultural and historical reserves, so that we can neutralize their ability to develop, to distinguish themselves, or to prevail; thereby removing them as an obstacle to our strategically vital plans in the Balkans, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East.
Henry Kissinger
addressing a group of Washington, D.C. businessmen in Sept.1974
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... I only need to state that this view is not any personal view of Henry Kissinger but of a part, and certainly the most powerful, of US politics. It is not any hatred of American people against Greeks (and we Greeks can make the difference between geopolitics and peoples' feelings), but it is not then any novel geopolitical approach, as US geopolitics in most cases, simply inherited the British geopolitics.
This should go to no offense to British people who most often have nothing to do with all that but either we like it or not, for British geopolitics Greeks posed always the problem. That explains the support to genocidal Turkey and to most threats Greece has faced including indirect support to Italians an Germans in WWII in ways you cannot imagine.
Now you know what is all about:
Russian gaz, Russian commercial exit in Mediterranean, Chinese deals for using Mediteranean ports as a station for the Asian-European commerce etc.... the game is too big to be occupied with rants...
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I am sorry. I did not mean to offend you, but I stand by to what is the bottom line of what I said. The blatant national jingoism has to stop. I don't like it when people in my country accuse other nations of foul play when my country is having to deal with a self-inflicted problem and I'd rather hope that people in other countries don't like to see their countries do that.
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@ Chris Camp (97)
Let me ask you something. If I move to Germany and marry a nice German lady, will my great grand children be less German? Will they have the right to identify with the whole German history and culture? Even if I don't marry a German but another immigrant would our great grand children be less German?
So, when did the ancient Greek civilization ended? Under the Roman empire? Under Byzantine empire? Under Ottoman empire? When? Thru out the history of this little part of the world, there was always some people living here, feeling Greek. Ottoman censuses stated some parts of the population as Greek. What where those people?
If you ever bother to read ancient Greek history, you will find that ancient Greeks had a great civilization but also had lots of bad traits. You know how we know we are Greeks? Modern Greeks can still identify the same bad traits in our modern society. We murdered Socrates back then, but be sure that we would do the same today.
Now lets see about the arrogance of the neo-"hellenic" regional muscle-flexing and chauvinism that makes you angry.
1)The problem with FYROM is in history books. Or more accurately in history textbooks. In what little children grow up believing in. There are two versions on that history. The one taught in Greece and the one taught in FYROM.
Let me try to summarize those two different histories. Which one is more accurate, is not in my intention to discuss.
In Greek history, Macedonia was one of the ancient Greek kingdoms. Ancient Macedonians were simply Greeks. During the roman and later the byzantine period, lots of other people came to live in the region, mingling with the local populace. Finally during Ottoman rule lots of turks came to live as well. When the region was finally liberated by Greece, only the populace that defined itself Greek, stayed in the region. In that history, FYROM was merely an attempt of communist Yugoslavian leader Tito, to side with the communist side of the post-WW2 greek civil war and create a new country that will give him access to the Aegean sea. Some of the Greek communist rebels fled to FYROM after their defeat.
In FYROM history, Macedonia was not an ancient Greek kingdom. It was a completely different set of people. During the roman and later the byzantine period, lots of other people came to live in the region, mingling with the local populace. During Ottoman rule lots of turks came to live as well. Finally, Greece came and occupied the region. During the greek civil war, there was an attempt from the communist side to free Macedonia, but it failed to succeed. Some Macedonian freedom fighters fled to FYROM, but most of the population still lives under Greek occupation.
So, lets talk about the future. In the Greek version, there is no possibility of a conflict, now or ever. The biggest part of Macedonia is in Greek control populated by Greeks. The tiny parts of ancient Macedonia that are not in Greece, don't matter at all cause they are populated by non Greeks.
FYROM's version on the other hand is filled with future conflict. They believe that the greater part of their country is under Greek occupation with Macedonian people living oppressed. It has conflict written all over it.
Sure, FYROM is no match for Greece military, but there would always be some hotheads that would try to stir some trouble.
And btw, I'm Macedonian, Greek Macedonian and every time you call them Macedonia, you effectively calling me a thief of their land and an oppressor. Do I have the right to feel offended?
2) Cyprus belongs to Cypriots, christian and muslim alike. In case you haven't noticed Cyprus is a country and not part of Greece. Cyprus does not belong to Greece, Turkey or even the UK. Finally Cyprus does not belong to the around 150000 settlers that Turkey moved to the island after the invasion.
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Chris Camp. That is what exactly is our idea. Especially when the national jingoism far from being based on any reality other than outrageous fallacies, is deeply aggressive and expansionist and becomes the perfect tool to hands of the geopolitics of more powerfull nations.
We have been bitter enemies with Bulgarians. The root cause if you serach well was not nationalist because if it was it should had been activated or at least observed long before the end of the 19th century. It had to do with the clash of Britain against Russia. Russia lost the influence over Greece and turned to Bulgaria as a means of requiring its much needed access to the Mediterranean. Greeks and Bulgarians fought harsh wars practically over 10-20km stripes of mountainous land to put it blantly when all could be solved if Greeks and Bulgarians spoke among themselves and arranged so that both Greeks could have their homelands (and Greeks traditionally lived in the coastal regions), and Bulgarians living not so far from the coastline, their much needed access to the Mediterranean commercial lines that could be served via any Greek port given to them at friendly rates - like...like it is done nowadays and the two nations share excellent relations, better than ever.
Funnily the game is such that Russia nowadays speak to both Bulgaria and Greece while "Britain", I mean US of course (but then with a pretty much willing Britain behind), tries to get everyone else, i.e. Turkey, FYROM and Albania against that Greek-Bulgarian axis of friendship that is in no case offensive to any other nation - everyone else is welcomed but is only dangerous for the geopolitical plans of US.
So what nationalism has to do with that? Greeks or Bulgarians are not nationalist and they do not go arouns brandising their histories (and by the way, Bulgarians are the second oldest nation in Balkans and I think also in Europe...). It is others that attack our cultures and provoke us with a target of attacking our national sovereignty. Actually they are pushed and paid to attack us.
Well there was a late 1960s Greek movie where the hero, Aris (Greece), is finally betrayed by one he considered as a friend (.. the allies? US? EU?). And he asks him "You? How could you?", and the "friend" says "The money were a lot, Aris, really a lot".
Well just trust me in that. Greece is a little country and the whole region has powerless countries. Even considerably bigger country Turkey seems more powerfull but is based on glass-legs. It is not at all about the micro-interests of these countries (and certainly Greece has no regional interests other than seeing peace in the region). The money are much more and are part of the bigger game in the greater area (just put a circle from mid-Mediterranean to Caucasus and Middle East and you will get it).
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Nik, You are a VERY good writer and tell stories of the Greek past and the Greek Prent era times.
But, to be credible, I THINk YOU Should write fiction. You have all the legends, all the historical story backgrounds and the talents of an extraordinarily GOOD writer.
With novels based on the historical backgrounds you present, the world's sentiments would be in Greece's cultural grip.
BUT, leaving out of your books anything, seemingly, ..prejudiced would also be wise.
Good Luck:)
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@ 102 Nik
“….their /i.e. of the Bulgarians/ much needed access to the Mediterranean commercial lines that could be served via any Greek port given to them at friendly rates - like...like it is done nowadays and the two nations share excellent relations, better than ever…”
The analyze is correct. It was high time to come to a more working schema of coexistence that would provide for the prosperity of two neighbour orthodox nations which have a common history, common faith and very close cultures… Congratulations! I will sip to your health a glass of ouzo!
@103 David
“BUT, leaving out of your books anything, seemingly, ...prejudiced would also be wise…”
David, the Byzantium Empire and its neighbour and rival, the Bulgarian Principality were leading cultural entities of Europe up to the XIV century. Have you ever heard of Cyril and Methodius? Have you got the least idea of the civilizing role the Christian orthodox religion had for the people inhabiting Central and South Eastern Europe?
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104,
yes, and thank you.:)
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Re104: Generalissimo, what is funny is that when Greeeks and Bulgarians or Greeks and Serbs approach each other, the west rushes to speak about "orthodox axis" as if we are some short of Balkan-Hamas in the region which is disgusting.
The truth is that Greeks, Bulgarians and Serbian are distinct nations, with their own parallel history and if Greeks are considerably different to the 2 Slavic nations and had wars but even Bulgarians and Serbians had terrible wars with each other. So with such a history and when up to recently Greeks, Bulgarians and Serbs saw each other as demons how can anyone speak about "orthodox axis" it really escape my imagination!
Is it so bad that Bulgarians and Greeks (and we hope Serbians and one day others too) care about the stability of the region and the enhancement of cooperation? Does that really hurt so much?
Anyway, yesterday I was watching on Greek national television a programme about China and there was discussion about all these issues I have been telling you. The Chinese leasing on Greek ports, the Russian gaz, the rapid changing world etc. And in spite of the channel being wholy under ruling party's control, one analyst started questioning (mildly - but whoever knows knows it is not! - that "How on earth the PM can go on freeze such strategic deals with the Chinese and the Russians, especially at a crisis time when Greece is desperate for creating new ways of making money". And another was wondering: "ok so far we were of the US-UK axis but what good did we see so many decades along with them? Didn't they attack us in Cyprus or not? Is it really any usefull remaining close to someone who will remain against you". Another one was analysing how Europe is really out of space in relation to the realities of today's world, and that not only it should not abide to the "open markets" strategy but it should rather go on play it like China and Russia keeping it open only where there is interest to do so (i.e. US's worst fear...US of course does the same thing, eg. Boeing opposed to Airbus...).
Well, what I have foresaw becomes 1 by 1 reality and you just have to go back to my messages 1 by 1 (that US's move to end the Greek visa was really really spectacular, so it seems up to yesterday we were a kinf of Hamas for them, now we are partners...).
However, the most interesting thing an analyst mentioned, is something I have already thought of quite a lot and analysed. Something extremely interesting. East west (i.e. China-EU) commerce via Russia... How? No, forget about the northern passage with the melting of the ice and such. We speak about the building of a lot of parallel Hypersiberian train railways of a new kind that would link Eastern Europe to China and which could gradually arrive to the capacity to move the majority of East-West trade. Just think of it. Train is the cheapest way to transport massively things. In this case it will be also the fastest (apart the transportation by airplane, but there we talk about small quantities and high costs).
True that EU and China will be weary to give Russia so much power but then at the end of the day private companies will not be able to resist the lower prices and cut throughput times. If this project, right now on papers, goes on, the only way US could avoid losing the world's commerce out of its control will be to fight off such a project by bringing on back the... airships (another cheap way of transporting things... e.g. 10-15 airships driven by 1 pilot and the rest robotically following , all driven by GPS system and such... carrying the lot of 1 ship - that way they could bring transportation prices down to avoid a railway project but then they will have to guard the market cos airplanes are difficult to make, airships, at least basic ones, are relatively simply made by even smaller countries...). Still the railway seems much more close to happening.
So you get the point of what games can be around and you cannot imagine.
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Nik @ 106
Your vision of how the EU could establish a long term economic exchange with China through the endless (& refurbished Russian railways) is really fantastic. I hardly could follow, ‘cause I apprehend a total destruction of our economies given the fact that China is going to be the workshop of the planet. However, I do not forget that the EU is also a customs union. It was designed to protect the local national economies. Well, I agree that the EU-Russian cooperation based on the supply of gas/petrol could be somehow counterbalanced by the EU-economies through the supply of high-tech goods/services in the opposite direction. But how could we compete with the mighty Chinese flow of cheap & subsidised goods/services? Maybe my economic knowledge is not enough sufficient as yours to foresee all the possible profits for my country and for my people.
I agree with your vision that the three orthodox nations should cooperate on the Balkan theatre, and, I hope that both Serbia and Montenegro will be invited sooner or later to apply for a EU- adhesion. The sooner, the better! As a matter of fact, all of those countries are European countries and if Serbia & Montenegro meet the standards of the EU- institutions, they will join the EU no matter how some “good advisers” shall qualify that Balkan community of orthodox nations… I try to understand the people who still openly oppose the integration of the West Balkans /including Croatia of course/ to the EU and I can’t see a plausible argument. The same people would better welcome the adhesion, say of Turkey, a stance I would qualify as a Muslim axe support…which would contradict both the geographical and the political conditions for the mere existence of the EU.
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Generalissimo, you are correct saying that such a scenario of trains moving the bulk of the East-West commerce may endanger the very basis of the EU.
But it does not have to be the case. Europe if added alltogether has a pretty substantial population and a concentrated one. And it is also a high-end products production powerhouse. All it has to do is to maintain its key industries and maintain at least a minimum level of even those little industries that are being largely delocalised in China (ok, we can buy our bolts and nuts from China but we should keep 1-2 local manufacturers too so that in case China becomes expensive or has shortage we can counter balance at least for our basic needs).
History gives us a nice example of how to deal with China. Take the Byzantine Empire. How it fell? You think from Turks? Not at all. Of course from Latins. Yes. But how exactly?
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- Well having passed really a lot of trouble, in the 8th and 9th century with the huge Arabs raids and then in the 10th with the even more terrible Bulgarian raids (youuuu!), the Byzantines reached a point by early 11th century where they had settled donw all their major threats and could manage affairs easily all over the place of Eastern Mediterranean. They had the most powerful army, the most powerful navy, and at the same time surprisingly a full treasury, and they could deal anything that moved taking for granted they they needed some time to examine, assess, arrive and deal with it.
- However, all these wars meant that the Byzantine population had considerably decreased. In Greece Bulgarians had managed to kill around 30-40% of the population (but the blinding of the 10,000 was not done for punishment - Bulgarian soldiers were simply seen as rebels and they were simply punished according to the old Roman law!). Basileios II brought from South Italy population to re-populate Greece thus thinning the Greek element there (and thus being vulnerable to external threats). With the population being reduced and large parts of "citizens" refusing to play the game (if we can count the conquered Bulgarians as citizens as Basil wanted to view them), the local production was becoming more and more expensive. On the other hand, with general piece across the lands, the aristocratic/plutocratic class was not willing to maintain the formidable (but quite expensive) army that Basil II had maintained. So there was formed a whole alliance of aristocrats/plutocrats that was represented by the interlinked families of Doukes-Komnenoi and there followed a period of around 50 years of struggle to prevail. This plutocrat class, first moved their money to North Italy which became their fiscal paradise and invested there in the production of all sort of products produced in the Empire while foremost in the construction of shipyards and building of ships.
- The same plutocrat class was lobbying first for letting North Italians protect the Adriatic sea for the case of Byzantines in exchange of letting them in the western Byzantine ports of Italy, then of Greece and then of the whole Empire with a bit lower taxes, lower taxes became even lower and at some point they became no taxes at all. At the same time, the very same class was lobbying for raising the taxes aiming to kill middle and upper classes, especially those who produced. On the top they called for monasteries and churches being tax-free so that all remaining local capital would flow via terribly non-productive activities such as the religious institutions. Production in Byzantine Empire from being the main source of revenu became a... liability for the state! The army with virtually no investement in 50 years disintegrated (even the liquid-fire came out of use). The Byzantine commercial fleet vanished in 40 years (i.e. the maximum lifetime of ships!), the Imperial navy ceased to exist at least in its previous form, and its place was taken by Italian "allied" navies who alternated from allies to pirates with Byzantines losing their ability to do anything.
- The Komnenodoukes new that as long as the slightest part of the military was around, they would not be able to pass their will. At some point there was reaction expressed in the rise of Emperor Romanos (the first military after 50 years). It is the Emperor who faced the first Seljuk raids. He won the battle but was betrayed by a Doukas family member, then the Komnenoi took power and managed to wage 10 years civil war to clean all their internal enemies (while Turkish were easily expelled by the army!). After they cleaned and established "order", the Seljuk Turks return and with an exemplary ease, they enter into eastern and central Minor Asia. The Komneni seemed to be largely OK with that, thye only cared to contain them in the central regions and away from the coastline - so much they "did not care" about them that they organised campaigns even down to Egypt while Seljuks were always relatively near them on recent Byzantine land.
- And it was the Komneni that brought the Crusaders in the East, as an easy way to raise cheep armies for the control of the East-west commerce: Crusaders fought, Italian ships transported goods, Byzantine investors won money while sitting. People do not think of it but the Byzantine Empire reached its richest point on the 12th century i.e. a few decades before its final fall to Franks/Latins on 1204 - after that there was no more. Turks would come only after 200 years to simply gather the ruins the Latin catholic conquest and the orthodox civil strife had left behind.
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What did you learn out of all that? About:
1) Demographics, change of population analogies
2) Importance of East-West trade routes
3) Delocalisations
4) Impoverishment of the middle class
5) Making money without having to produce
6) Reducing military expenses
Its all there and it is repeating today in the western world (US, EU included).
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