The gap between Spain and Germany
In the aftermath, the verdict. Spain, masters of possession. Germany squeezed out of the game. They had hoped to hurt the Spanish with fast counter-attacks but they couldn't. It was predicted Spain would play that way in the World Cup semi-final. They did and Germany could not counter it. It was a match that underlined the different tactics of two European sides.
Whatever the differences on the field of play, they are as nothing to the differences on the great plains of the European economy.
Recently, a German newspaper trumpeted a new economic miracle. Industrial orders were 30% higher than a year before. For Mercedes Benz, June was the best month in its history, with orders up 13% on the previous year. Unemployment has fallen for 12 straight months. Growth this year could be 2.3%. Even its budget deficit looks as if it will be lower than expected, prompting its finance minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble, to call the news "delightful".
Germany is "big surplus" country, currently running at 5.5%. Even if the shine comes off some of these trends in the coming months the German motor is purring.
In Spain unemployment continues to edge up. It is close to 20% and is more than 40% for those aged between 16 and 24. The International Monetary Fund forecasts that Spain's economy will shrink this year by 0.4%. It is struggling to emerge from recession. Spain has a budget deficit of 10%.
In the private sector there is still huge debt, some of which may have to be written off. The Spanish good years were built on a housing boom. It was, for a time, the biggest creator of jobs in the EU. The burst bubble has left behind an injured coastline, 800,000 unsold homes, and companies burdened with debt.
These two countries share a single currency and inhabit the same monetary union. Spain would benefit from a looser monetary and fiscal policy. Germany would not.
For Spain there are two big questions: How will it grow again, and how will it become competitive again?
Firstly, there is the not insignificant fact that Spain is committed to reducing its deficit by 2013. Public sector wages have been reduced, some benefits are being scaled back and some investment programmes postponed. All of this, of course, may weaken growth.
Spain would like to generate growth from exports. The falling value of the euro helps a little but not nearly as much as for Germany, which has a far wider range of world-class products to export.
Spain would like to export to a booming Germany but growth there is driven more by exports than expanding domestic demand.
As was apparent from conversations earlier this week in Berlin, Germany will not reduce its current account surplus to help its neighbours. Politically it's a non-starter.
How will Spain become competitive again? In order to become competitive with Germany it will have to embrace wage cuts beyond the 5% already announced for the public sector. It will have to endure a squeeze on income for years.
One of its problems has been its restrictive labour market. Many older people have jobs for life with extensive rights that makes it almost impossible to lay them off.
Many younger people are on temporary contracts with little job training, which prevents them learning the skills for high-quality jobs. There is a generational divide at the workplace.
The question remains unanswered as to who will provide quality jobs for the future.
The Spanish government has started making changes to its labour laws making it easier to hire and fire. Many employers say it does not go far enough. There is already resistance from unions, which will intensify in the autumn. The IMF has said Spain needs "far-reaching and comprehensive reforms".
So Spain is facing cuts and austerity at a time when it needs to re-engineer its society. Gradually people in Spain - like elsewhere - are realising that Europe won't be able to maintain its welfare state unless its economies grow faster than predicted.
The reality is that the differences between Germany and Spain are growing not narrowing.
Spain may have reason to celebrate on Sunday. It may taste success on the football pitch.
But its future is far less certain. Without far-reaching and unsettling reforms it faces a future of stagnation, marked by low growth and high unemployment.
I'm 
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I thought Gavin will take this opportunity, would be silly not to :o)
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That is a "tabloid" like title around a "tabloid" like article.
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I sense that (like France) there is some bitter medicine to take which the politicians do not have the spine to dish out. Any of them who dares to speak of such a thing will the subject of innuendo/smears/dark secrets until they are politically buried.
There will be a climb down to the economic equivalent of a cough drop and a fervent prayer that Germany has enough cash to go round.
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*pokes moderator with stick*
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Look for Spain to improve its financial position through financial reforms.
Look for Spain to close the gap with Germany, even if the closure is (at first) rather miniscule.
Look for the Spannish Government to issue new rules allowing the unlisted regional banks (cajas) to issue shares, including voting rights, representing up to half of their capital and making it easier for them to access funding.
The rationale:
Break the constrants for cajas. Get them away from political influence.
This is an extreme overhaul by Spain, an economic measure to fend off fears that Spain may go the way of Greece vs the way of Germany.
Cajas avoided the American crisis (US toxic mortgage-related debts), but Spain has its own property problems. EU and Spannish Analysts, working together estimate the cajas (@ half the Spanish banking system) are carrying 2/3 of the more than 300B euros owed to banks by property developers. Therefore, Cajas are highly exposed to commercial real estate default and that’s where capital concerns crawl through the doorway.
The result: the reform (as stipulated above).
Euro under threat; that’s all you see in the western media.
Why?
From what I've seen and read in foreign newspapers, businesses and consumers are exchanging euros for goods and services - like they've always done. Indeed the euro zone’s economy is quietly expanding, getting healthy. Accountants reckon that GDP grew at an annualised rate of around 2% in the second quarter, a decent number by EU standards.
Germany did rather better. Its GDP growth rate may have been 4% or more. German companies are looking east and west to both Asia and Latin America. Overall business-confidence indicators from Italy are grounds for cautious optimism. Ireland’s GDP rose by 2.7% in the three months to March.
Yet most of the western media keeps wailing about the Euro.
The report from Europe is that its upswings typically begin with exports (and the United States has minimal stuff to export). German firms seem almost indifferent to weak consumer demand at home. Their mantra, as you likely known, has been “we will always find someone to export to.”
So, regardless of articles like “The gap between Germany and Spain”, I have faith in the EU and its wisdom and ability to work with each and every indidual EU member to re-establish a solid economic foundation.
As for the IMF, well, let’s just say I am not a big fan – in fact, I am no fan whatsoever: too much American input.
Why does the IMF hardly ever refer to the American soverign debt and the effect of that soverign debt which amounts to trillions?
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I did a lot of work in Germany and Spain in the 2000 to 2005 period. Flying into Frankfurt or Madrid one was immediately confronted by a big difference in the most visible symbol of economic dynamism the world over; the number of cranes. Cranes were everywhere in Madrid, but a rare sight in Germany in the early years of the euro. The one-size-fits-all eurozone monetary policy meant interest rates were too high in Germany and too low in Spain. There was a surplus of investment possibilities that were seemingly profitable in Spain at the prevailing interest rate, and a dearth of similar projects in Germany. Capital was therefore pouring in Spain to fund these projects, many of them in construction, and quite a bit of that capital was coming from Germany where it could find not any profitable home at historically high (for Germany) eurozone interest rates that made many domestic investments look unprofitable. That flow of capital only made sense if one really believed the high-rate of return in Spain, Ireland, Greece etc. did not indicate future inflation there, and that risk of exchange rate loss had been abolished and not merely replaced with other risks such as the risk of default. As time goes by one sees that the eurozone periphery was not a financial equivalent of a perpetual motion machine after all; just a place where the economic indicator of the profitability of capital (interest rates) has been artificially distorted by euro-federalist politicians for a decade already such that a lot of investments that should never have been made, were made.
The distorting consequences of the rules of the one-interest-rate-fits-all eurozone monetary policy are a little like the unintended consequences of the one type of penalty in football for all types of fouls committed inside the box. If the cost for handling the ball on the goal-line to prevent a certain score in the last seconds of extra time is only a penalty that might be missed then who can blame the Latin American player for handling? If the cost of diving in the box is low compared to the potential rewards of winning the same penalty then why blame so many players for diving? If the cost for over-borrowing at artificially low interest rates in the eurozone periphery is that entire nations pile up debt for a decade and then decide to exit the euro zone or default leaving investors from other euro-zone countries out of pocket then who can blame nations for doing just that? In these cases it is more appropriate to blame those who set the rules rather than those who play to the edge of the rules, and to look at the motives of the rule-makers.
Euro-federalists have a lot in common with Sepp Blatter; the same ultimate concern with their own authority, that it is more important that they are the ones who decide the rules than that the rules make any sense, the same dogged defence of what was agreed in the past even when everyone can see that change is long overdue. This is truth is the real EU disease.
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It's really a problem many western countries have in common. The older generations voted themselves generous benefits. Now we find out we cannot afford them, the older generations do not want to give them up, and politicians know older folks are more likely to vote. And the main problem is the benefits that public sector unions managed to squeeze out of politicians with threats of strikes. Its mainly these benefits that are unaffordable.
Oh, did you know the EU bureaucrats recently demanded a huge raise?
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"As was apparent from conversations earlier this week in Berlin, Germany will not reduce its current account surplus to help its neighbours. Politically it's a non-starter."
Jah, Jah, Jah, that's what they said about Greece too. This is all very good news for Spain. It means that when Germany has set aside enough money to bail out Greece, there will be more left over to bail out Spain too.
Not content to simply be the best Germany it could be, Germany wanted to rule Europe, if not by military conquest itself then by political conquest in conjunction with France. Well now it's got its wish. It played with fire and it got burned. If I were a German, I wouldn't expect any help with the PIIGS from France. They never help anyone except themselves. Every time it will be the same story. If that one goes down, it will take the Euroa and Germany with it. No choice but to prevent that from happening any way Germany can.
But who will bail out the UK? Not the US. How about the Commonwealth. I'll bet Canada's got some money. And they have the same Queen. What a lucky coincidence for the UK. They can start dancing to the tune of the Mapleleaf Rag right now.
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sending the UK out of the EU should be the top priority for a stronger Europe
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The bankers and investors would like to regress to the days of cheap labour in Europe. They are on a head long attempt to kill the middle class. Only government officials and economist support the destruction of this plan. Investors and big business like cheap labour and cheap property, buy low,sell high. As India and China develop the middle class some computer call centers will be in European countrysides has the market shifts. The bankers have stolen everything of worth and will march off to Asia with Europen funds to betray newer economies. The wrong people, making the wrong decsions for the wrong reasons. Not much future in that. The greatest robbery in history and done with the help of what are called democratic governments.
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Marcus, isn't it time to stop living in 1930 and start enjoying life in 2010?
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#8
But who will bail out the UK?
Why does the UK need a bailout? It has no maturing debt, for 10 years+
I'll bet Canada's got some money
Sure has, unlike the US which hasnt the proverbial pot to pee in. Niall Fergusons comments on Bloomberg made me laugh - by 2040 debt interest payments for the US economy are predicted to be higher than the annual tax take. LOL! Lucky you'll be long gone by then.
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As a trader in Frankfurt recently pointed out "If there were people in the Spanish government with the same professionalism, work ethic and skills as evidenced by the Spanish National Football Team in its last game, Spain could be a great and thriving economy".
Absolutely right. The trouble is that Spanish politicians are generally far more interested in political point-scoring and lining their individual pockets than they are in the collective interests of their Nation.
Add to this Governmental Administrative Systems that remain essentially unchanged since Franco's dictatorship (50 years out of date, designed to repress an entire people and prevent anyone from doing anything) with a cowardly political class terrified of change, the chances for Spain to realise its considerable possibilities are negligible.
Germany has determinedly overcome its years of dictatorship. Spain has not. Hitler's Reich lasted a little over one decade. Franco's continued for almost four decades and its legacy continues to emaciate Spain. Ambition has been rooted from the populace, entrepreneurship stifled and idleness rewarded. And so it will continue...
In Spain: "the dictator is dead - long live the dictator".
In comparing modern economies, one cannot overlook recent histories.
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Maybe Paul the Octopus can predict which state will be the first to leave the Eurozone?
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Spain had this unemployment disaster and financial meltdown coming.
When the PPP was in power, the government was considered fiscally competent. Then came the Al-Qaeda attacks in Madrid, just before the elections (where the PPP was ahead in the polls), and Zapatero and his inept cadre was swept into power.
Spain did indeed exit Iraq as promised (they would've left soon thereafter in any case), but at the cost of complete economic mismanagement and lack of foresight.
Now, not only is Spain mired in one of the deepest recessions and unemployment figures in the West, it will be the last to get out.
That's what you get for letting terrorists dictate your leadership.
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Freeborn John, in railing against the one-size-fits-all interest rates of the eurozone, says interest rates have been too high in Germany and too low in Spain. Hence the disparity. This is surely too simplistic an analysis for a situation that has been built up over eleven years. Interest rates in the eurozone, as anywhere, are fixed between the lender and the borrower. The German banks who lent to Spanish property developers expected a better return than lending long term to their industrialists developing products. It worked fine for a long time - better returns and quicker returns. Most were not clever enough to get out before the dancing stopped. That's the nature of institutions. The individual decision-makers have however no doubt been able to squirrel away fat salaries and bonuses in the meantime. They can well afford to sit back now and wait for the next bubble, leaving the rest of us to pick up the pieces.
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9. At 4:21pm on 09 Jul 2010, serpiko wrote:
"sending the UK out of the EU should be the top priority for a stronger Europe"
EUpris: Please, please, please get the UK thrown out of the
"EU"-Dictatorship-Monster-Nuisance-Waste-of-money-Parasite
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If I had my "EU"-passport handy it would be on the floor and my foot would be on it as I typed.
Of course it wouldn't strengthen the "EU"-rubbish but if your fantasy that it would will help to get us out then:
OH YES!! It would definitely strengthen our beloved "EU" if we could get rid of those difficult Brits!!
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
To Alice - Hi, good to know your are on line.
To Opinion - exactly and about as factual!
To BluesBery - another of your thoughtful comments.
The 'Caixas' as spelt in Catalan or 'Cajas' in Spanish, are savings banks. They are owned and controlled by their depositors there are no shareholders or shares.
The present deposits total some 1,400 billion Euros. The two larges, that of Madrid and the Caixa of Barcelona together hold deposits of over €500 billion. The problem is that there is a tail of to many tidlers left over from the days when every town had there own. These are now being pushed (often very reluctantly) into groups or taken over by the big boys.
To Freeborn John - There is a lot of truth in what you write. I would say that the future for all countries is impossible to predict, certainly much more so than the outcome of a football match.
Now I must go and take the dog for a walk - and it is still 29ºC!
Mike, Barcelona, Spain
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An easy comparison based on easy, superficial facts, some of them distorted to make things look gloomier for Spain than they actually are. For instance, May saw a record decrease in the number of unemployed. IMF predicts the economy will shrink 0.4% but the fact is that Spain's economy has been growing -albeit weakly- all this year so far. And the debt. All numbers keep indicating that Spain's public and private debt is below the average for Western Europe. But some journalist refuse to stop referring to Spain as debt-ridden country, perpetuating am opinion that has become a cliché.
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"...In the private sector there is still huge debt, some of which may have to be written off..."
Funny article once again...
Year 2007:
Spain is a major investment country which convinces markets to the point of capturing foreign capital amounting to almost 160% of GDP
Year 2010:
Spain is a country with feet of clay due to the External debt of more than 170% of GDP, which cast doubt on an early return.
In less than three years, the distorting lens of the market has made two very similar figures reading the opposite.
External debt of European countries:
Country↓ US($)↓ Date↓ Per capita US($)↓ % of GDP↓
---------------------------------------------------------
Ireland 2,287,000,000,000 30/September/2009 515,671 1004%
NL 3,733,000,000,000 31/December/2009 226,503 470%
UK 9,088,000,000,000 30/June/2009 147,060 416%
Greece 552,800,000,000 30/June/2009 49,525 167%
Spain 2,410,000,000,000 30/June/2009 52,588 165%
Ireland, UK, Champions of External debt but the escape goat, with your unhealthy British "PIIGS" propaganda, was Greece
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"Gradually people in Spain - like elsewhere - are realising that Europe won't be able to maintain its welfare state unless its economies grow faster than predicted."
Mr Hewitt, you keep on repeating this fact as a mantra. Do you have a sound simulation (I mean figures based on economical models, not just 1980's rhetoric) where the speed of growth is calculated?
As far as empirical evidence shows Germany, who has a much bigger welfare state, is not doing that bad compared to other places (e.g., Britain) where the welfare state is not that strong.
The comparison with other countries, such as USA, Brazil, India, or even China doesn't square the fact that the population in Europe is not growing that fast. Do you account for growth per capita?
Also, another interesting piece of data would be to know how many of the 1 million immigrants in Spain are included in the jobless percentage.
The 20% figure is very likely to be worse than reality, as many young people are employed in so-called "black" contracts which are unaccounted for in official statistics.
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Re 15. At 6:12pm on 09 Jul 2010, Atomic_Mash wrote:
You need some updates regarding your post: Zapatero has been voted last year back in.
So your terrorist myth is a bit outdated...
The housing bubble did not start in 2006, but way before.
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6. At 3:17pm on 09 Jul 2010, Freeborn John wrote:
"Cranes were everywhere in Madrid, but a rare sight in Germany in the early years of the euro."
You must mean "Frankfurt" instead of "Germany", because I visited Berlin 3 times in the last 5 years and they still have many cranes there.
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Re: Marcus Aurelius,
I moved to London from the US and never looked back. For starters, London beats New York on the quality of life surveys. Speaking of quality of life, there are no American cities in the top 10. None. Instead European, Australian, and Canadian cities are the best places to live. Every quality of life survey says this, even those made by American companies. Look it up.
I hear loads of American accents in London, so it must mean that Americans are fleeing the sinking ship! And since half of those accents are in the offices I have worked in, I know that these Americans have chosen to live and work in London, not America. Also, American immigrants are the largest Anglophone immigrant group in London.
Look up the New York Times article about the American dream not delivering for current generations like it has previously. I'm on my phone now so I can't post a link now but I will later.
I'm not knocking the country of my birth, but seeing the stereotypical Ugly American attitude as exemplified by Marcus is embarrassing, even though I agree with him about reducing the size of the state and reforming labour laws in this era of globalisation. You lost any argument by calling everyone else "losers". Everyone else, please don't think all Americans are like this.
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MikeE-BCN :o)
same here; dog, walk, 29.
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AmericanLondon;
Hopefully you left New York City to ease the housing shortage there by one unit. I think most Americans living in Britain or anywhere else outside America for that matter are on some kind of temporary work assignment, are foreign exchange students, or are just doing it temporarily for the experience. I did it for two years in France when I was young. Most Americans live abroad are there because it was part of their career path with their employer in the US. I'll bet you didn't first move to Britain and then look for a job once you got there. You are also probably paid more than your British counterparts who do the same job. It is only because you are secure in the knowledge that you could come back to America at any time that you left. It's that foolish new dual citizenship nonsense again. If you were forced to choose between living the rest of your life in one or the other but could not be both, which would it be?
I've lived in many cities including one in France. Of America's cities the one I enjoy most is San Francisco, an area where I lived in the suburbs for about five years. But I was born and raised in New York City and I don't know of any other place on earth quite like it.
Still the list of my ten best cities in the world to live in are....none at all. I live in a rural area and would never even consider going back to live in the suburbs again let alone a city. The peace and quiet of the rural life combined with fresh air, fresh water, and lots of room makes for the best possible lifestyle. If I need to go to a city, I can get there in a little over an hour. Otherwise I avoid them at all costs usually paying no more than one or two day trips a year. Glad you like London. What will you do when Britain's economy collapses, go on the dole or come back to the US? What industries has Britain still got, finance? That's the only thing it still does and even that is in trouble.
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9. At 4:21pm on 09 Jul 2010, serpiko wrote:
"sending the UK out of the EU should be the top priority for a stronger Europe"
EUpris: Please, please, please get working on it. This British citizen just cannot wait to be free of your "EU".
The BBC has removed my more robust comment to you.
The BBC will not allow me to describe my contempt for your "EU".
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9. At 4:21pm on 09 Jul 2010, serpiko wrote:
"sending the UK out of the EU should be the top priority for a stronger Europe"
EUpris: I am guessing that the word "strong" is a reference on your part to a desire for a Greater European Reich.
I am further guessing that you do not appreciate how many non-British "citizens of the EU" really hate your "EU".
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9. At 4:21pm on 09 Jul 2010, serpiko wrote:
"sending the UK out of the EU should be the top priority for a stronger Europe"
EUpris: Would not giving people referenda, especially those who were promised one, strengthen your "EU"?
Would not showing respect for the people the "EU" is meant to serve strengthen your "EU" rather than treating them with contempt?
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9. At 4:21pm on 09 Jul 2010, serpiko wrote:
"sending the UK out of the EU should be the top priority for a stronger Europe"
EUpris: Why would anybody want to strengthen something which is a waste of money, an enemy of the people it is meant to serve and a danger to world peace?
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On Gavin's previous post he wrote:
"The most serious part of the scandal is the allegation that 150,000 euros (£124,000) in cash was secretly given to the Sarkozy campaign in 2007. "
But when I posted the same thing under the previous topic, my post got removed.
Is somebody out there targeting my posts?
If so, have you got the guts to identify yourself?
(I don't mean real name and address!!)
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American london:
"Everyone else, please don't think all Americans are like this."
Well, given some of what Marcus writes it is arguably whether he is an American or an Israeli. Or a zionist posing as an American when it suits, and as an Israeli when that spirit moves him.
I often wonder about American jews, about where their real loyalties lie. They seem a paradox to me, possibly because I have convictions of neither religion nor nation.
Of course the American-Israeli will claim to be both at once, but I wonder. If push came to shove, is it better to believe in a selfish and weird god, or a selfish and weird state?
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At 10:59pm on 09 Jul 2010, Ellinas wrote:
"External debt of European countries:
Country↓ US($)↓ Date↓ Per capita US($)↓ % of GDP↓
Ireland 2,287,000,000,000 30/September/2009 515,671 1004%
UK 9,088,000,000,000 30/June/2009 147,060 416%
Greece 552,800,000,000 30/June/2009 49,525 167%
Ireland, UK, Champions of External debt but the escape goat, with your unhealthy British "PIIGS" propaganda, was Greece"
I imagine you mean 'Scapegoat' not 'Escape Goat'.
You show Gross not Net debt:
UK Net Debt is 44.19% GDP, Ireland is 66%, Greece is 119% (2009)
The information is easy to find on the Net, but don't let facts get in the way of a good argument.
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Gavin, as far as gloomy predictions go, the psychic octopus has predicted that Spain will come on top.
At least as far as soccer is concerned.
And this comes from the octopus in Germany!
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#25 "I hear LOTS of American accents in London, so it must mean that Americans are fleeing the sinking ship!"
Well, it cuts both ways.
Anna Chapman (aka Anya Kushchenko), for example, fled UK to move to US and liked it so much that she did no want to go back even to Russia. :)
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
"2. At 1:36pm on 09 Jul 2010, opinion wrote:
That is a "tabloid" like title around a "tabloid" like article.'
I agree
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I once encountered a psychic octopus in a restaurant at Cape Sounion, in Greece.
As its sliced flesh peered up at me through a marinade of olive oil, lemon and herbs I distinctly heard a voice say "I will be delicious"
And it was.
(See: I can write positive things about Greece).
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Well, I “succeeded “ in getting a message concerning the Italian minister president censored.
I regret the attitude of the moderators. I can say that all information in my contribution has not only been published in European media outside Italy. They are also supported by sources published in Italy. Further a bibliography of these sources has been published in European media.
The information might even be published by British media. At least I see that BBC is telling its readers that Italian media have gone on strike today.
Well, you will have to find the background elsewhere.
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Poor article. I suppose Mr. Hewitt did not have many more ideas and he went back on the same topics. Why he did not compare Germany with UK?
There are around some quite interesting articles explaining the nature of this crisis. For example, The Crisis & the Euro, by George Soros (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/aug/19/crisis-euro/?pagination=false). I think that is a good analysis of the problems with the Euro. When Spain got into the monetary union "Spain followed sound macroeconomic policies, maintained its sovereign debt level below the European average, and exercised exemplary supervision over its banking system". Nevertheless, the very low interest rates kept in the eurozone for years have been our Achilles’ heel.
In any case, I rather prefer to be Greece than UK, for example. 4% of Greek children do not have a father... against 30% in UK... that is a tragedy... all the rest have a solution.
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Gheryando
You are right, I'm sensitive.
I think labelling every Albanian a 'thief', all Brits as 'degenerates' & various other labels You have recently supported in the posts of other contributors is reprehensible on Your part.
Now, as insensitive as it may seem, I really must call a halt to this particular exchange as there is absolutely no point to this continuing.
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JorgeG1
Hello!
Where are You?
Come on, now's Your chance, You've been spouting for 2 years how terrible the UK is: Now You have an opportunity to respond to Mr Hewitt's Article on all Spain's finer points.
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dt;
"I have convictions of neither religion nor nation."
What else would I expect from a lawyer. Lawyers have no convictions of any kind to anyone or anything. Not to a religion, nation, or any system of beliefs. They are trained to argue any side of any case with equal vigor and conviction only depending on who pays for their services. They will defend the most heinous mass murderer with equal skill, determination, and doggedness as they would prosecute him.. They float freely without any moorings to any morality, ethics, or creed of any kind. There is no right, wrong, up, down, or any compass in their world except the one which points in the direction of legal fees.
Counselor, you may not have intended your words that way but at the very least it was a Freudian slip which reveals your true attitudes in life. And who is to judge whether you are right or wrong? This is why nothing you say bothers, provokes me, or influences me. Taking it where it comes from, it all exists in the vacuum of empty space.
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#41 Noh
Why he did not compare Germany with UK?
I know it seems obvious but because the no UK team got anywhere in the World Cup.
You left out George Soros' next sentence about Spain Yet it enjoyed a tremendous real estate boom that has turned into a bust resulting in 20 percent unemployment. Now it has to rescue the savings banks, called cajas, and the municipalities.
This is as much a structural failure as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the USA and the Northern Rock mortgage lending model in the UK. It implies poor macroeconomic financial governance.
The George Soros article is somewhat biased toward the public sector with which, I guess, he grew up in Hungary. He appears to expect the public sector to sort out the european economy, he says ...Third, this is the time to put idle resources to work by investing in education and infrastructure... he is talking about the European Investment Bank.
We seem to forget that the command economy failed where it has been tried. Like it or not, the private sector pays the bills.
Thank you for pointing out this article which was very interesting. His main target appears to be German financial policy and its tragic short-sightedness.
Maybe he's right. Personally, I don't think so but then, I also don't see how the Eurozone is going to recover but I expect it to. There will be some Deus Ex Machina, we just haven't seen it yet.
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Jukka_Rohilla, ThrenodioII, ChrisArta, Mathiasen, Lacerniagigante etc.
Schengen!
Trips off the tongue.
Trips off-the-cuff!
2 of our friends had tickets for a 2-day trip from Helsinki, Finland to Tallin, Estonia with an overnight stay.
Last Tuesday they rang us they were unable to go & kindly offered the tickets - - we accepted.
Wednesday evening we boarded the Viking XPRS Ferry in Helsinki harbour - - 3 hours later we landed in Tallin - - went to our pre-booked Hotel - - Thursday we did the tourist spots & bought the half-price vodka, wines (compared to Finland) - - boarded Viking XPRS & were back in Helsinki 8.30p.m.
We had used 2 tickets booked in someone else's Name; we undertook 2 sea voyages; we departed & entered 2 Nations; we were approx 48 hours unavailable.
Though we had our Passports & Residence I.D. Cards with us at no time did anyone in Finland or in Estonia request any form of Identification; none of our luggage was checked departing or entering either Nation; the Hotel did not check our identity when we took the room in another's name; we left Tallin unchecked & on our return with a lot more items than when we left we walked straight off the Ferry back into Helsinki.
Schengen!
The Criminals' & Terrorists' FRIENDSHIP CHARTER!
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Gavin Hewitt mentioned,
"Spain would like to export to a booming Germany but growth there is driven more by exports than expanding domestic demand."
I think this is a very valid point about Germany, within Germany there is a perception that only if it is German made is it any good, and any company hoping to sell there often has to have a factory there to give the impression it's German made. Add to that some very protective laws which have only recently started to be slightly relaxed by EU pressure and one can see how difficult it is for any country to increase it's exports to Germany, as they quite simply don't believe in importing unless there is no alternative.
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Re #33 & any other such guff
No, it doesn't take much for me to fall off a perch, but reading Your litany of self-proclaimed truths on any & every topic with each contribution contradicting or condemning those written before does cause me to laugh so hard I do topple more easily these days.
I don't "..worry.." You: You are so full of Yourself You even enjoy being laughed at as some sort of acknowledgement Your inconsistency-riddled opinions matter to anyone but Yourself.
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dt;
"American london:
"Everyone else, please don't think all Americans are like this.""
"Well, given some of what Marcus writes it is arguably whether he is an American or an Israeli. Or a zionist posing as an American when it suits, and as an Israeli when that spirit moves him."
Well, given what AmericanLondon writes, it is arguabley whether he is an American or a Brit. A Redcoat posing as an Americn when it suits and a Brit when that spirit moves on. (possibly one with dual citizenship and those divided loyalties.) It may also be a manifestation of one Brit to still cling to that cherished self delusion of the "special relationship" that was created and has existed only as a fantasy in the British mind for so long.
I've never been to London or Britain for that matter and have no desire to go there. If he is an American in more than name only, he'd be the first I ever encountered who preferred it there. Even to my surprise, no American who had been there and even genuine British expats in America prefer it here. Often Americans living temporarily in Britain are in the financial business, are very well overpaid, and can enjoy life's greatest pleasures anywhere they go in ways most other people can't afford. I'll bet the divorce laws in Britain are more forgiving of the husband especially if he is rich than they are in America even if the medical care is much poorer. But then if he becomes seriously ill, he can always go back to America to get threatment there.
"I often wonder about American jews, about where their real loyalties lie. They seem a paradox to me, possibly because I have convictions of neither religion nor nation."
The overwhelming majority of Americans support Israel 100% and for many reasons. For one some are Jews and see Israel as the only reliably safe refuge they have in this world where they can be assured they won't be persecuted just for being Jews. It was not always so everywhere in America. Many Christians believe that the survival and triumph of Israel over its neighbors in a cataclysmic war is a necessary precursor to the second coming of Jesus Christ to earth and actively look forward to it. President Truman against the wishes of many of his top advisers recognized the State of Israel on behalf of the American nation ten minutes after it declared its existance as a state in 1948. Many Americans see the denial of Israel's right to exist by Moslems as an extension of Europe's right of Jews to exist and its thousand year war to exterminate them, a war which reached its crecendo during the Nazi era but which is still not over by a long shot. It is an extension and aspect of Europe's denial of America's right to exist and the war Europe has waged against America for its 234 years of existance. I am pleased to say that I think this war is on the verge of ending with Europe on the precipice of extinction. This is all the more bitingly ironic since the US did not intend to destroy Europe having saved it at least three times from wars of extreme nationalism, fascism and nazism, and communism. Now it will succumb to the unanticipated consequences of the unintended financial crisis which was inadvertently engineered in and radiated from the US through a confluence of dicisions that created the perfect storm and rippled throughout the world. Europe's flawed economic structure will not weather this storm IMO. Not only doesn't America any longer desire to sacrifice itself on Europe's behalf as it did so many times in the 20th century, it couldn't if it wanted too. Europe has dug a hole for itself so deep, nothing can rescue it this time. I watch its death throes bemused from a safe distance. Shadenfreude on Europe's part is really inappropriate for with the US will be battered every bit as badly, when the winds and rain die down it will pick itself up, dust itself off, and rebuild stronger than ever. It has done exactly that after suffering far worse. Europe hasn't and couldn't without outside help which it will not receive this time.
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ThrenodioII, Lacernegigante, Stirling222 etc..
Re my #42
This was 72 hour delayed response (as I had been away) to all Your critiques of my 'torture' in N.Ireland Comment 3 Blog Articles back.
Anyway, if the BBC MODS do decide the 'reality' is a too hard for all You feint-hearts to take I shall not write it again as it took some considerable time & obviously such a topic deserves a non-watered down version.
Suffice to say to all intents & purposes I refute everything You all said, but if CENSORSHIP continues there's no way to DEBATE THIS IN A MATURE MANNER as BBC clearly does not accept WE are all ADULTS on here.
IF this is the case: My apologies on behalf of the BBC which yet again loses its value by its inept & censorious PC attitude wholly out-of-sink with the real World it laughingly proclaims to represent in news!
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So from Marcus I get the view that if you are not a radical fanatic who believes in good and evil then you are an amoral and worthless human being.
And from CBW I get the view that if the police state does not interfere in the freedom of people traveling across a 20km stretch of water, then terrorism will thrive and the entire world be be sent to hell in a hand basket.
The blog goes from strength to strength.
CBW, you would grace yourself considerably by offering less of that quantity, or perhaps offering it with more care. Spluttering gibberish is very boring.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
dt;
Moral relativism is only one of the European mind's fatal flaws. It is a view of life that for example turns a blind eye to an Adolf Hitler and his followers when they take over Germany, murder large numbers of Jews, socialists, communists, gypsies, menatlly ill. Europeans sat by and pretended it wasn't happening. Then the Nazis turned to murdering Poles, Czechs, French, and others who they considered unfit to live. Don't be too smug dt, eventualy had their conquest been more successful they'd have turned their attention to the Swiss. They would hardly have overlooked such a lucrative prize indefinitely when it was practically in their hands already.
Combined with a slavish devotion to the heirarchical view of all things including people and ideas in a ranking order of worth that cannot change even by proven merit Europe comes into inevitable eternal conflict when those heirarchical views which are different from one nation to another come into direct conflict over who should exercise power in a particular case. I assure you that each European nation state thinks itself better than all of the others while Europeans as whole think of themselves as inherently better than non Europeans. They see themselves as better educated, more cultured, more aware, and smarter. What angers them about outsiders including both Jews and Americans is that their example leaves little doubt that Europeans are wrong. They are seriously outclassed and the undeniability of it infuriates them. This of course only makes them angrier. That is why they still feel Jews should not have their own nation and America should still be a colony of Europe.
You can see the patronizing attitude of the European mind at work just recently expressed agaiin by both British Petroleum's President and their Chairman of the Board who referred to Americans who were victims of their criminal negligence as "the small people." It seems to me Europeans need to be cut down to size and events beyond anyone's control are doing just that. There is poetic justice and irony in it that ranks with the best stories of Greek tragedy, Shakespeare, and O'Henry. Fact has become more fascinating then fantasy.
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Re my #53
This was a reflective comment in which I invited DemocThreat to consider how it was I found so much that he wrote was 'tosh & gibberish'.
In it I alluded to previous Published comments by him in which he described the British as "..degenerates..", Israeli Citizens as "..dregs..", PM Blair should be "..hung..", and not least, stabbing the English in the eye in with a "..fork.." was an appropriate thought process.
Apparently, for BBC MODS, it is alright for DemocThreat to write and have Published those uncontroversial ideas, but not for anyone to remind him that when he pontificates on 'democracy, 'freedom', 'justice' and the 'Swiss way' he may not be taken all that seriously by those of us who know mental-base wherefrom his actual viewpoints unpleasantly originate!
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I'm agreeable with previous opinions which pointed to the horrible influence of the terrorist attack on 2004, March 11th. Probably, the former goverment of PP would have had to fight with this crisis as the current goverment is doing. Nonetheless, the economic team of Aznar was extremely more competent and professional than this kind of inept gang, led by Zapatero. The measures taken by this goverment has been wrong and late, due to the great weight of the ideology in the behavour of Mr. Bean, sorry, I meant Mr. Rodríguez Zapatero
The spanish civil society showed a big cowardice during the period March 11th to 14th, just before the elections. Citicens thought that changing the goverment would be the best way to please Al Qaeda and avoid new attacks. The result of this attitude was the arrival of Mr Zapatero to Moncloa Palace. Nowadays, nobady doubt that this has been the worst president in our democratic history. It's said that a great nation must show courage in the most difficult moments. We did not. And we are suffering the effects.
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Spain like the rest of Europe is getting what it deserves. It's the old saying that people get the government they deserve. It would be most ironic if September 11, 2011 is the day the wheels fly off the European bus.
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"..Spain...11th September, 2011.. wheels fly off.." Ironic?
Is MAscaridII totally devoid of understanding of people's feelings?
Is he aware that such a Comment in almost any street, bar, cafe or home of New York would result, if he were lucky, in his leaving in an ambulance for emergency Dental Treatment?
Just how dumb can one schmuck be!?
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gsamsa
Re #56
It would seem You and JorgeG1 probably wouldn't see eye-to-eye on the benefits of Mr Zapatero's Government.
It would be interesting to read JorgeG1's take on all this, but he unfortunately appears to be absent from this Blog just when it gets truly interesting about Spain - - odd that - - he never missed an opportunity to inform Britons of all the UK's faults!
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#58
"Is MAscaridII totally devoid of understanding of people's feelings?"
"Just how dumb can one schmuck be!?"
The winner and runner-up of the Rhetorical Question of the Year Award 2010.
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Re 59
..the benefits of Mr. Zapatero's goverment? It must be an irony. Isn't it?
He has divided the society, He has openned the most dangerous process of secession, He has done nothing to improve the economy, He has broken our traditional alliances in external politics and encouraged ridiculous friendships with despotic an exotic leaders...
All in all, a total disaster
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Commonsense
Re #60
I know, but MAscaridII doesn't!
He's in his cave, completely oblivious most Americans reading his #58 will loathe any inkling such a comparison was made or is possible: He'll be scratching his head thinking up the offensive riposte...
The O'Henry 'patriot' more injurious than an Al Queda martyr to the USA!
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"43. At 11:43am on 10 Jul 2010, cool_brush_work wrote:
Gheryando
You are right, I'm sensitive.
I think labelling every Albanian a 'thief', all Brits as 'degenerates' & various other labels You have recently supported in the posts of other contributors is reprehensible on Your part.
Now, as insensitive as it may seem, I really must call a halt to this particular exchange as there is absolutely no point to this continuing. "
cbw - I think we were through with this (or did my only post on this thread offend you? But I agree. Lets get on with it.
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cbw;
"Is MAscaridII totally devoid of understanding of people's feelings?"
Oh what's the matter, some European feelings are hurt by what an American said? What's the matter, you can't stand the taste of even a drop of your own medicine? Europeans can dish it out but they sure can't take it. That's one sure sign of losers.
"Is he aware that such a Comment in almost any street, bar, cafe or home of New York would result, if he were lucky, in his leaving in an ambulance for emergency Dental Treatment"
Actually it would probably get me elected to public office. The depth of hatred for Europe in America is so pervasive nobody even bothers to talk about it anymore. BTW, we have strict laws against assault. Not only would someone wind up in jail with a fairly stiff sentence for it but I could wind up owning their home, all their possessions, and their bank accounts. Not a bad haul for taking a punch or two.
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Re #64
Yeah right, MAscaridII, we can all see the Americans flocking to Your support on the Blogs!
I've only 2 American light acquaintances in Finland; neither uses this Blog, however both are familiar with Your stuff from posts I send to them in Helsinki.
The one in the US Consulate just says there are 'rampant rednecks' all over the States & that by their standards, You are a mild fool. The other asked me not to send anymore of Your stuff as she just wants to "forget there are people that st###d" from the US, "it's just so deperessing.." (her words): Mind You she is half-Finnish so maybe she doesn't count although she lived from a baby to her 20s in Ohio.
You carry on believing referral to Your precious '9/11' is something to be worn like a badge of honour for debates on all & sundry: We'll carry on wondering how any American can think almost 3,000 dead & many more hurt is a cause for slandering British & Europeans!?
It's not about hurt feelings this side of the pond: Yeah, You'd get votes alright - - only You, don't realise what they'd be sending You to - - there is no "..depth of hatred.." in America, there is just Your opinion among many, and what Your fellow countrymen would be measuring You for with "..a punch or 2.." isn't the Big House You have in mind!
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cbw;
"I've only 2 American light acquaintances in Finland"
Yes, from your description of them I'd call them lightweights too.
"The one in the US Consulate just says there are 'rampant rednecks' all over the States & that by their standards, You are a mild fool."
The State Department is hardly my favorite government department. They are on our side...I believe...but sometimes it seems just barely so. They work for Madam Hillary, the woman who kissed Mrs. Arafat after she slandered the Israelis by saying in Arabic that Israelis were poisoning Arab children. She was duped by Mrs. Arafat, she was duped by her husband, she's a sharp and clever as a bowl of stale cornflakes. How disappointing I was only able to make "mild fool" with them. I guess I will just have to try harder. However, from what they've told you, you can see that when I said there are a lot of people in America who detest Europe...I wasn't just whistling Dixie :-) Imagine what the ones they don't call "mild" must say and think. Besides what else would you expect State Department employees to say about foreigners? They get paid to be nice to them. They either comply or they lose their jobs.
"The other asked me not to send anymore of Your stuff as she just wants to "forget there are people that st###d" from the US, "it's just so deperessing.." (her words):"
Oh please keep sending them to her. I wouldn't like to think she will stop at merely depressing. Who knows where it could go if she reads enough of it. What's probably depressing her is that she knows most Americans feel like I do...or even more strongly.
"Mind You she is half-Finnish"
She may be half finnish to you but she is entirely finished with me. No doubt an apointee of the Obamination Administration. Dual citizenship too? I wouldn't be surprised.
cbw, Europeans shouldn't count on help from America again. If I were still of draft age and there was a military draft, I'd sooner face prison than risk my life to defend Europe.
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Europeans usually get into the most trouble when they get what they want.
In 1914 they wanted a war to prove their nation's superiority. "The boys will come home by Christmas." That's what people said. And they did, in coffins. I fact an endless parade of coffins that lasted for three Christmases and almost made it to a fourth. When the parade was over, nearly an entire generation of European young men was dead.
In 1938 they wanted peace at any price. And they got it. The price was that within a year they were engaged in the greatest bloodbath in human history.
After the war they wanted to be part of the USSR. No luck, the Americans would not allow it. So they did the next best thing, they created the EUSSR, their own version. Now it is about to implode and take all of them with it. The members are at heach other's throats.
When they saw American banks and other financial institutions appearing to make money gambling on sub prime mortgages, derivitives including CMO, CDOs, CMSs, they wanted in on the act too. They were even greedier than American banks leveraging themselves from 20 to 1 up to 40 to 1 where the Americans were only leveraged 10 to 1. And then it blew up and bankrupted them.
Two years ago they couldn't wait for Barack Obama to be elected President. They got their wish again and between his tight money policies and other America first policies he's instituting on behalf of American labor unions he's driving the entire world bankrupt. Europe is even closer to it than America and will go over the cliff first. Does September 11, 2011 sound like a possible date for it? Time will tell as they say.
We'll see what they want next. I don't know if the world can take any more of it.
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Re #66
No, sorry MAscaridII, my fault, You misunderstood the American who thought You were another 'rampant redneck': She was referring in direct conversation with me to a particular form of American she had seen as long ago as her childhood when Pres Kennedy was assassinated, as she said, "..they hung out Confederate Flags.. Klu Klux burnt their crosses on lawns.." and she added, "..these are the crazies You get in any society.. only in the States we get them on our television all the time... its cheaper than making programmes..": She is a Republican.
And of course, though I haven't informed her yet, no doubt the half-Finnish one will be eternally relieved not to have to be associated with You.
Of course, as You did with ThrenodioII, You jumped right in feet-first, and no pause for who it was You were more than keen to suffer "..more than depression..".
The American-Finnish Citizen You so disparaged is a World renowned author, a person who has been awarded the highest Academia esteem in the USA & in EUrope, and she is resident in Finland for a time holding a distinguished Chair at a University - - I know her via my wife's work - - You couldn't have known she is also a Republican but also & friend of the Clintons.
All that said, she too will as I said, just be relieved another 'crazy' isn't on her mailing list.
Sometimes You gotta laugh, aye! And in Your case laughter is about the only emotion that can possibly save You, but I don't think You have it in You.
Anyway, 2nd half World Cup 3rd/4th place match is on - - You don't rank, by comparison - - actually, if I'm honest, You simply don't rank, full stop.
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This is getting boring.
When and where is the next Eurozone crisis?
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cbw;
"She is a Republican."
Well that explains why Madam Hillary exiled her to Mooselandia.
Max;
"This is getting boring.
When and where is the next Eurozone crisis?"
You're in the middle of it right now. That's what this thread is about. The eye of the storm. Spain wants and needs a bailout. Germans doing better than expected will be reluctant to say yes having bailed out Greece. Madam Merckel given her history and perhaps her real loyalties will be reluctant to say no. Whichever way she turns, she will face a crisis. As time passes and the PIIGS get deeper into trouble, the pressure to fish or cut bait will be overwhelming. Which way will she go? The French have remarkably stayed out of the fray. Sarko has his own problems with his political scandal. The wheels on the bus go round and round....
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#48 Buzet23
You have obviously not visited many German homes nor seen the cars they drive ?
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cbw and Marcus
Your snobbery and Marcus are offering less and less to this Blog.
We can ALL stoop to your level, but some contributors have more CLASS and they should be respected !
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at 27 Homer Simpson wrote:
"I've lived in many cities including one in France."
Yes, I remember you mentonioned in a previous contribution that you once lived in Bordaux for a while and went to a Ratskeller there. Dressed in Lederhosen I seem to recall. And some louts were rude to you. Amazing those useless bits of information that stick in ones mind.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
58 - cool_brush_work
He really does not care and neither should we. I sometimes think his sole purpose in life is to cause maximum offence while failing spectacularly to score points.
The Madrid bombings were a monstrous attack on what, at the time, must have seen a relatively soft target. It is plausible that it swayed the result of the subsequent election but it is absurd to suggest that it was the only consideration. It is also worth remembering that, whatever else may have followed. neither 9/11 nor 7/7 dislodged the governments in office. We need to look at this in perspective. Terrorist activity has little to do with the current economic woes of western states unless you are a conspiracy theorist who subscribes to the view that long term disruption to the world economic order was the ultimate objective of these attacks. The time frame suggests otherwise and I personally am highly sceptical.
It may be possible to make a tangential link between the bombings and the arrival in office of Zapatero's government but their economic policy is entirely of their own making.
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#73 - margaret howard
". . . once lived in Bordaux for a while and went to a Ratskeller there. Dressed in Lederhosen I seem to recall".
One is tempted to ask what kind of idiot slums it in a bierkeller wearing fancy dress in western France. Maybe the kind who has not bothered to get a visa. Are we sure they were louts?
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Well, I tried rewriting my posts, and in truth there is nothing that breaks the house rules in any of them.
I think I have earned the enduring emotional hatred of the moderator, which I shall wear as a badge of honour.
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I'll try to address the subject of this blog again. Maybe the previous moderator has gone home.
Hewitt wrote:
"Without far-reaching and unsettling reforms it faces a future of stagnation, marked by low growth and high unemployment."
That was his last line. It shows, in my view, his complete lack of financial knowledge. Given the extent to which he has covered the Greek crisis, it also begs questions about his ability to acquire such knowledge.
To explain, Hewitt is arguing that Spain faces "stagnation" and "low growth". Nothing could be further from the truth.
Spain cannot stagnate. Nor can it hope for low growth, unless collapse and negative growth is "low growth".
The reason is found in the nature of the Spanish current account deficit and the bond markets.
Spain currently spends 120 billion euros more than it takes in tax revenues. So it has a current account deficit which is adding to its debt each year, and adding considerably. It has a GDP of about a trillion, so it is adding around 12% of GDP each year of this deficit.
That situation cannot stagnate. Each year, old debt must be renewed, and more tax revenue must be allocated AWAY from the economy and towards interest repayments to foreign creditors.
The latter effect of the new debt is a slow choke hold on the economy, but it is still not stagnation. It is slow death, but certain death.
But the former problem, the renewal of the old debt, is why the idea that Spain's economy can stagnate really becomes absurd.
Spain has a vast amount of debt to renew. It must borrow the money at new bond market rates to repay the debt borrowed at old bond market rates. So if the bond market loses faith in Spains ability to repay the debt, the cost of borrowing JUST TO ROLL OVER OLD DEBT becomes huge.
That is what forced Greece to go begging to the EU. Hewitt covered that ad nauseaum. But he missed the crucial point, apparently.
The crucial point is that bond markets are simply not going to let Europe, or Spain, stagnate. That is not how bond markets roll.
Spain is facing, now, 20 % of its population under the poverty line. Right now. Right now, it also has armies of government employees that it cannot afford to pay. It must borrow the money to pay them. But it cannot afford to fire them, either. Both because it would create unemployment levels beyond great depression levels, and also because it would cripple what is left of the economy and send growth massively negative.
Anyway, I have no idea why I am still posting on this blog. The standard of journalism is properly described as tabloid by other posters.
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Yup, it must be the moderator all right.
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71. At 11:03pm on 10 Jul 2010, quietoaktree wrote:
"#48 Buzet23 You have obviously not visited many German homes nor seen the cars they drive"
- right, or seen the electronics or the clothing we are offered here. There is no reason to believe that German consumers behave differently from other consumers in other countries. IKEA is very popular here, and when I recently bought a tripod for my camera, the legs were Italian while the head was German - (they can be combined).
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The truth is that the German economy is simply better than many other economies: Audi, Mercedes, BMW - better quality of products, more competitiveness
It becomes more and more ridiculous than there are comparisons with the 1930 and 40s - I think the people that do so recognize themself that they are make themselves a laughing stock.
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MAscaridII
Re QOT's #72
Now MAII, this IS what IS MEANT by 'irony':
QOT writes accusing us of 'snobbery' & then goes on to claim he has 'class'!
DemocThreat
My guarded sympathy: At least we share that thread of experience... The BBC MODS don't like adults really getting into adult debate... it unnerves their cosy PC fire-side chat version of what all supposedly decent people are about!
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voice_germany
Re #83
IMO You are 100% correct; comparisons/referrals other than in the context of topics on the eras are entirely foolish.
Now, if You could point to the contributions (other than the mad-greek) that actually do as a method of denying Germany its place in the 21st Century then please go ahead.
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#84. At 08:53am on 11 Jul 2010, cool_brush_work
I have just had a contribution concerning the leader of the government in Italy censored here on BBC. I don’t care to explain the matter itself - the contribution would probably be censored once again, but instead I shall encourage everybody to find information about the development in Italy in other media. It is quite extraordinary things, and that is of course also the reason why BBC hesitates to allow it.
I understand that some here have made a similar experience in the case of Sarkozy. It is now official here on the blog that the French president is getting involved in a case that is creating difficulties for his government and himself. That is a diplomatic expression so that BBC doesn’t get problems. Mr. Hewitt has used the word scandal in the recent article on Sarkozy (guess what it is in Italy).
Luckily we have serious media not supervised by politicians like for instance La Repubblica in Italy, and therefore this information will appear even if state integrated public service media hesitate to bring it. ex In the end they will have to.
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#71. At 11:03pm on 10 Jul 2010, quietoaktree wrote:
Re "#48 Buzet23
You have obviously not visited many German homes nor seen the cars they drive ?"
You're right about not visiting homes as I only visited a few, but I worked there for 14 months and met and talked with a lot of Germans, plus my girlfriend at the time was half German. Things may have changed now but I very much doubt it, and others I know who have also worked in Germany in other areas have also noticed the same pride in German products. Although with the economic crisis and high taxation maybe some Germans are now looking at those nasty cheap badly made foreign products.
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Mathiasen
Re #86
I also extend my sympathy to You on this BBC Moderation process.
It seems the BBC MODS are incapable of acting other than as CENSORS of what is in English Common Law terms, already "..in the Public Domain..".
For BBC Moderation to believe it is correct in restricting Public access to items that are commonly available on other News Blogs is a ludicrous abuse & misuse of power.
A quite remarkably foolish and IMO dangerously anti-Democratic state of affairs for the BBC to get itself caught up in.
I am reminded that in 1968 when the Irish Troubles broke out in Belfast with serious sectarian rioting, houses burnt & many people injured the BBC 'authority' thought fit to WITHOLD the 'news' for 48 hours whilst details of it could still be heard on Radio America, Belgian Radio & across Europe inc. the Soviet Union!
On this Blog I wrote at #42 a long (as usual) and clarifying account of my experiences as a soldier who served in Northern Ireland during those 'troubles' & had witnessed/taken part in actions by all sides that were utterly reprehensible.
That #42 referring to events principally in the 1970s is CENSORED by the BBC MODS some 30 years AFTER the events took place!
How can the BBC or any NEWS organisation justify 30 years after episodes NOT Publishing an eye-witness account of matters directly relating to a part of the United Kingdom when there has been a form of Peace Accord in place for 12 years!?
No NEWS organisation worthy of calling itself a 'news service' could ever claim to be such when its MODERATION PROCESS acts in such a high-handed, censorious manner.
It is simply an insult to the users of this Web-site!
Apparently those 1960s' 'Auntie knows best' censorship instincts still apply some 50 years later!
The UK ADULTS who Pay the License Fee are not to be allowed to express themselves too openly on what is THEIR Media company!
Quite astonishing & breathtaking such People still inhabit the Corridors of Power at the BBC.
Whenever I read the explanation of the Rules of Moderation/House Rules I am always struck by how careful BBC is to imply it is acting on behalf of the Contributors when it is nothing of the sort in reality with almost any Moderation.
Mathiasen not being able to have a Comment on an Italian 'news' story being absolutely typical of BBC Moderation. A process owing little or nothing to standards of legality and everything to the BBC being a Politically Correct entity almost totally divorced in terms of representation from those ADULTS who are forced to Pay for its upkeep. How disappointing must it be for 'visitors' to BBC Web-sites who anticipate a high level of News coverage & are left feeling the BBC has fallen well below the reputed top quality Institution it once was in the eyes of the World.
This Moderation Process is a tragedy for the BBC and for the wider Public who expect and deserve a good deal better 'service' than antiquated CENSORSHIP from the UK's flag-ship International Broadcaster.
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#82. At 07:47am on 11 Jul 2010, Mathiasen wrote:,
You comments reminded me of an old joke about the perfect car, basically the design was Italian but it was built in Germany, I hope your tripod is not a victim of that joke.
You also mentioned "There is no reason to believe that German consumers behave differently from other consumers in other countries.", I think you'll find that traditionally they have, they prefer solid well built products that last for decades whereas most other countries considered price as well as quality. I notice that tendency here in Belgium where heavy solid oak furniture is very popular as in Germany but elsewhere that type of heavy furniture is not so popular and Ikea rules.
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MA2 prediction/wish list update:
The end of European civilisation as we know it: nope
The collapse of Britain: nope
The impeachment of Obama: nope
The end of Greece: nope
The end of Spain: nope
The end of the Euro: nope
US withdrawal from Europe: nope
US/EU trade war: nope
Imprisonment of Haywood and end of BP:nope
End of UK/US relationship:nope
US withdrawal from NATO: nope
Nuclear strike against Iran:nope
Nostradamus he aint.
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CommonSense
Re #90
ROFL x 10!
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Gavin, I realize there is a superstate called "EU"
And that there's allegedly a 'European identity".
But will Catalans be allowed to display their national flags after todays soccer final?
I've already seen those big posters at the huge demo in Barcelona:
'CATALONIA IS NOT SPAIN!'.
Which makes me wonder what 'Europeans' known previously as Basques will do next?
[Not to mention the Flemish in that region surrounding EU's capital]
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A possible update to the list in #90:
Extradition of a British citizen, Anna Chapman from US to...Russia: YES!
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Re: 83. At 08:02am on 11 Jul 2010, voice_germany
EUpris: The Germans do a good job. They try to use good materials and equipment right from the start. They try to establish good labour relations and create the feeling that the company is there for everybody. If you get a bad job done in Germany, it is an exception.
The UK should learn from the Germans. We don't have to be in a political union to learn from them and be friendly with them. We should not let them or the "EU" dictate to us. There are things they do which we should not copy.
In some ways being in the "EU" makes things more difficult. When I have criticised the "EU" in Germany very mildly I have been abused. On one occasion somebody told me they would not want to employ me because I am anti-"EU" even though I have an unusual combination of qualifications which was of interest to that person.
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#93
"Extradition of a BRITISH citizen, Anna Chapman....." etc
Hmm, thats not a "YES!" - its a "NOT FOR MUCH LONGER!" The Russians are welcome to her, especially if her marriage is proven to be a sham. She is pretty though, does that explain your repetetive posts on the subject, perhaps an enthusiam for femmes fatales?
"Her chances of returning to London appear slim however. The Home Office said at the weekend that it had the right to deprive dual nationals of their British citizenship "where to do so would be conducive to the public good". " - Telegraph
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#93 - powermeerkat
Chapman faces no charges in Russia and was not extradited, she was expelled - simply a mechanism to facilitate the prisoner swap.
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at 92 powermeerkat writes about "a superstate called EU" and an allegedly "European Identity".
Experience has shown us how difficult it is to knit so many cultures together. But Europe has at least achieved it twice - for hundreds of years the Romans managed to bind together all these different peoples and create the first European identity. The Holy Roman Empire achieved something very similar next and that lasted for a thousand years right until its collapse after Napoleon's onslaucht on Europe in the nineteenth century. Now many good and honest men are trying to unite us again after years of unrest, two world wars and innumerable border disputes. Yes, there are many difficulties for instance with the Catalans,Basques, Flemish and others but we are trying hard to overcome those.
Now lets look at the US of A. They had hardly become an independent nation after a bloody war of independence when the threatened secession of the southern states caused one of the bloodiest civil wars in the history of mankind, with brother killing brother and slaughtering each other.
I have travelled in northern America and the southern states and quite frankly they seemed to me as different from each other as say Greece from Germany. Worse than that parts of the southern states seemed more like a third world country that still hadn't recovered from the carnage of that conflict.
I don't normally indulge in Nostradamus style forecasts but my bet is that the US will fracture again in the not too distant future, similar to the disintegration of the Russian Empire after the collapse of communism. Maybe even before the end of the EU predicted or in the case of Homer Simpson wished for on these pages.
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Maggie McGuire;
"Yes, I remember you mentonioned in a previous contribution that you once lived in Bordaux for a while and went to a Ratskeller there. Dressed in Lederhosen I seem to recall. And some louts were rude to you. Amazing those useless bits of information that stick in ones mind."
If you are going to cite my postings, I wish you would at least get it right. It was in the spring of 1973 at an industrial trade fair in a place in Bordeaux called Le Lac. I was with a group of Americans and Canadians. The Rathskeller was a sort of beer garden restaurant in the midst of this fair. We were dressed in attire similar to what others attending the fair were wearing and in no way out of place. After viewing much of the exhibit we decided to have lunch at the Rathskeller. We were refused service by the Germans who ran the place. It was a clear cut case of anti-semitism as some of our group were Jewish. We spoke to some of the French who turned a deaf ear to us. At that moment it occurred to me that from the mid 1930s to the early 1970s whatever else had changed in Europe, German antisemitism and French indifference to it hadn't. The mindset was exactly the same as it was before WWII. It also made me wonder why we in America were still defending these people and paying for it.
Looking at the news it seems to me that the ancient tribalism that characterized Europe for millenia has not changed. It is an atavism that still permeates and poisons European hearts and cultures. It is at the essence of what Europe always was and still is. It is one of many reasons why Europe is in a state of crisis from which it cannot escape. It is imprisoned by the way it views itself and the world. It is irrational and will not deal with or accept reality as it is. As a result, the so called European way of life was a fools paradise paid for by others to those who neither deserved it nor could sustain it on their own. Somehow Europeans feel that lifestyle is their birthright. The credit card is exhausted, the checking account balance is deeply in the red, and the game is over. Even the marginal efforts of European governments so pathetically inadequate that should have happened twenty years ago or more are being resisted and defied with great force by large numbers of Europeans. While Europe tries to figure out how to build an economic engine that works, the rest of the world is a hundred miles down the track, moving at a hundred miles an hour and accelerating. Europe's day is over. I'm just a messenger telling you what you already know. If you didn't believe it was true, it wouldn't make you so angry to hear it. That only makes it funny as well.
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MargaretHoward
Re #97
I actually think You are indulging in a bit of the unworthy prediction business You so deplore in many of MAscaridII's more unedifying jottings.
The U.S. of A. is one of the oldest Democracies in the World: Much older than any in East Europe & when one considers the tumbling French Republics - - are they on the 5th/6th? - - then Nations such as Italy, Greece, Spain, Portugal barely 20/30 years out of tyrannies. As the EUropean Union is still literally a 'work-in-progress' with the much lauded & trumpeted Lisbon Treaty ratified Dec. 2009 already facing drastic revision it ill behoves EUropeans to knock at or look down on the Democratic processes of the North America.
Though some 20+ years ago now, like You, I have travelled extensively in the States: There are pockets of stunningly abject poverty, and the 'crazies' (i.e. Evangelists/Survivalists/Klu Klux etc.) are always a 'live' menace because of the shocking prevalence of a Gun Culture, however, alongside that must be grasped the vast multi-cultural mix of energies & ambitions that has driven the USA & been the impetus for its incredible on-going evolution.
Worth perhaps re-stating MAscaridII is a throw-back to an era he actually hasn't lived through himself: He writes & comments as though the song "Strange fruit" on the trees is not his rationale although he thinks its okay because it is American! He has no real idea about that 'fruit' anymore than he has about the British Isles or Continental Europe. His 'isolationist' America has always been there, but among its staunchest advocates was one Charles Lindberg, who flew the Atlantic - - and MAscaridII represents that same contradiction. He tiresomely berates and lambasts everything he preceives as 'un-american' activity & peoples, however, he never recognises he writes as he does because he fears & respects it all in equal measure!
It's the monochrome Hollywood classic, 'There's Something Out There!' Or, if You prefer, MAscaridII is one of those over-imaginative lemmings who ran into the streets when Orson Welles broadcast War of the Worlds!
Also well worth reflecting: The USA system has stood the test of time and brought a huge majority of its Citizens relatively stable governance, unparalleled progression & prosperity. It didn't get to that position because of the likes of MAscaridII, but inspite of his type.
It seems to me over the last 3 centuries many have predicted and all been wrong about the eminent demise of the USA.
Nothing You wrote or indeed on the horizon suggests the USA is any danger of falling in on itself though the foolish Foreign & Military Policies of the EU-Brussels may well see the USA back-off still further from EUrope.
It is a major reason I oppose UK Membership of the EU: IMO far better to have the USA as a staunch ally in the future than a rival as the axis-of-ill-intent, Paris-Brussels-Berlin, have clearly made their goal via the EU entity.
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ElagbalusII still spouting his bile? I love the catch 22 of his desperation for us to believe he and his fellow Americans care nothing for Europe, its people or its economy, and no one even discusses Europe anymore, such is the extent of their contempt. Yet the unavoidable fact is his frustration and anger is in black and white on our screens, repeated over and over and over again.
I personally care nothing for Alaskan politics, therefore I never seek out Alaskan websites, garner a few pieces of resentment-fueled opinion and attack Alaskans with it. It just doesn't occur to me. It even took me 30 seconds to think of a place I had almost zero interest in.
It nice that you feel able to use the deaths of millions of Europeans to make a fatuous point, and speaking in gloating tones about the hardship facing some European countries obviously brings you a small amount of satisfaction which I'm sure no one here will deny you.
I would question your assertion that the US has ever done anything for Europe out of a sense of responsibility. The USA has never done anything that didn't directly coincide with what was in the US's best interests. So if for some reason Europe needed the US's assistance, and it suited America to do it the childish bitterness of some of its citizens won't stop any assitance being given. Lucky for your country you're not in charge MAII!
By the way, have you bitten the bullet and bought yourself a Honda, yet?
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#98 - MarcusAureliusII
You responded to Margaret but I too poked a little bit of gentle fun at you in an earlier post.
I can understand why the event you describe was offensive and even painful but you tread on dangerous ground when you simply assume that because you were badly treated by a bad lot that we are all the same. I live in mainland Europe and travel extensively. I see anti-Semitism, racism anti-Roma sentiment and all the other unpleasant things you mention everywhere but it is precisely because it is so offensive that it sticks out in the mind. The overwhelming majority do not feel that way at all. The majority are broad minded and socially liberal people simply going about their day to day business in a lawful manner.
If you cannot see that, then you have missed the whole point. You simply fall into the trap of tarring us all with the same brush. That is not reason, it is prejudice. Precisely what you accuse us of.
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Maggie McGuire;
"But Europe has at least achieved it twice - for hundreds of years the Romans managed to bind together all these different peoples and create the first European identity. The Holy Roman Empire achieved something very similar next and that lasted for a thousand years right until its collapse after Napoleon's onslaucht on Europe in the nineteenth century."
To whatever degree there was any cohesiveness in Europe between tribes it was accomplished with the use of military force and coercion. You'd hardly know from the way you painted it that there were actually many of Europe's intramural wars going on all that time. For instance, Spain tried to conquer Britain with its Armada in 1588. And then there was World War Zero between Britain and France in which American independence was a pawn in the battle, the French winning that one. I'm not familiar with all of Europes countless wars anymore but you can just look at the grievances in the nations of former Yuogoslavia and they will tell you every atrocity real and imagined that happend to their own tribe in the last eight or nine hundred years. Dates, places, and even the names of their ancestors who were killed by the others who were the evil doers.
"Now lets look at the US of A. They had hardly become an independent nation after a bloody war of independence when the threatened secession of the southern states caused one of the bloodiest civil wars in the history of mankind, with brother killing brother and slaughtering each other."
Actually that didn't happen right away, it was nearly 75 years or three generations later. It had to do with the expansion of slavery into new territories in the west where Southern Plantation owners wanted to bring their slaves with them to exploit new opportunities in developing farmland. Secession occurred because they were blocked. The American Civil War was a legacy of the economy European colonizers had set up in the southern colonies. Europeans and especially the English created the cotton economy of the south, bought its products, supplied it with slaves. They created the conditsions for the explosion. Then they stepped back and watched events unfold. European smugness doesn't obsolve Europe's historical complicity in the causes of that war.
"I have travelled in northern America and the southern states and quite frankly they seemed to me as different from each other as say Greece from Germany. Worse than that parts of the southern states seemed more like a third world country that still hadn't recovered from the carnage of that conflict."
You must live in a dream world. There are pockets of poverty in practically every country on earth even in the wealthy oil states. But America is hardly third world nor on the verge of breaking up. Except for a few well publicized small fringe groups nobody would even think of it. Looking for a justification for shadenfreude Europeans won't find any in America. Whatever its problems or internal political differences, the forces that bind Americans together in one nation are as strong or stronger than they have ever been. I do not know of even one place in the US where secession is being given even passing consideration. Can you cite even one reference to it? Your description of the Southern states as being third world is laughable.
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Apologies typo & factual error in my #99
Italy should not be in the list if 20/30 year Nations emerged from tyranny.
In fact I originally wrote it along with Germany for 60+ years ago and then thought of 'voice-germany's #83 comment & edited but somehow Italy got left in.
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threnodious, I see the point quite clearly. Hungarians complain about the same discrimination and ill treatment they receive in Slovakia and Romania from the majorities there that they inflict on the Roma themselves in Hungary. I pointed out to you the program on Deutche Welle about it in which Budapest School District Number 8 was cited as an example to prove their point. Europeans are peas in a pod when seen from a distance. That they refuse to even consider it let alone see it is why they will remain that way. Want to talk about why so many Moslems born in Britain consider themselves Pakistanis or Moslems first and British not at all?
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String-a-ling;
"It nice that you feel able to use the deaths of millions of Europeans to make a fatuous point..."
And it's nice that you would have me ignore it by pretending it didn't happen so that I couldn't.
"and speaking in gloating tones about the hardship facing some European countries obviously brings you a small amount of satisfaction which I'm sure no one here will deny you."
I am hardly gloating. I'm telling you the facts which in part explains why the very existance of the United States of American came about as a rejection of Europe and all things European including its dogmas and doctrines. America is conceived of as an anti-Europe because it does not want to make the same mistakes Europe made and continues to make. For that reason Europe and America will never have interests that fully coincide.
You say; "The USA has never done anything that didn't directly coincide with what was in the US's best interests." Can you think of even one reason why it was to America's advantage to enter World War I? I can't. I think it was not only the worst mistake America ever made, it started America down the very path of European entanglement President Washington warned against in his farewell address. Many of the international problems America suffered in the 20th century might have been avoided had it not gone down that path. This is among the reasons why IMO Woodrow Wilson was the worst President America ever elected.
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90. At 11:07am on 11 Jul 2010, commonsense_expressway wrote:
MA2 prediction/wish list update:
The end of European civilisation as we know it: nope
The collapse of Britain: nope
The impeachment of Obama: nope
The end of Greece: nope
The end of Spain: nope
The end of the Euro: nope
US withdrawal from Europe: nope
US/EU trade war: nope
Imprisonment of Haywood and end of BP:nope
End of UK/US relationship:nope
US withdrawal from NATO: nope
Nuclear strike against Iran:nope
-------------------------------------
Hmmm... these are serious questions. I'll ask Paul.
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#104 - MarcusAureliusII
There is no point in talking about any of it until you see the logic. The reason this stuff receives such widespread publicity is precisely because the vast majority of us see it as repugnant. If we agreed with it, whay would we be bothered condemning it?
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#102
So now the English are being blamed for the American Civil War, a century after independence and decades after the British abolished slavery? You just couldn't make it up.
"To whatever degree there was any cohesiveness in Europe between tribes it was accomplished with the use of military force and coercion"
THAT is EXACTLY what the American Civil War was. Union ENFORCED down the barrel of a gun. You either dont know your own history, turn a blind eye to it or simply lie to make a point.
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threnodious;
"There is no point in talking about any of it until you see the logic. The reason this stuff receives such widespread publicity is precisely because the vast majority of us see it as repugnant. If we agreed with it, whay would we be bothered condemning it?"
On the contrary, it is ignored, they pretend it isn't happening, and when the undeniable evidence is presented to them they say it is a lie. That is what happened in the Deutche Welle program when the Hungarian school officials were confronted with it, that is what always happens when Europeans are confronted with it. That is what is happening here and now. That is what you and the other Europeans here are doing. If it were not so, it would get fixed. But it never does and never will.
While Europeans criticize Americans for their race relations problems America has worked long and hard to improve them. The election of President Obama is not just proof of that but that it is merely one example of countless others that demonstrate President Obama is becoming the rule, not the exception. Meanwhile Europeans have done nothing about their own problems. They live in a glass house yet continue to throw stones especially at America instead of trying to put their own house in order. That's all they ever do. That seems to be all they are capable of doing. That is what they resent being pointed out. That is why they hate my postings. And that is why I will keep posting them.
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nonsense offramp;
"So now the English are being blamed for the American Civil War, a century after independence and decades after the British abolished slavery? You just couldn't make it up."
No I couldn't make it up and didn't make it up. It is an historical fact that the cotton economy in the southern American colonies which depended on cheap slave labor to compete against Egyptian cotton was created by the British when they ruled the colonial South. It is also a fact that it was the British who largely brought the slaves to America to work the cotton plantations. I saw the places where the British would hold slaves in transit in what were their colonies at the time in Bermuda and Barbados. I'm sure there were many others in the Caribbean as well.
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ElagabalusII asked 'Can you think of even one reason why it was to America's advantage to enter World War I?'
How about the proposed funding of Mexico's attempt to regain the territories of Arizona, Texas and New Mexico? A German/Mexican coalition wouldn't have been good for you, would it?
Or perhaps the 128 American deaths as a result of the sinking of the Lusitania was enough?
Both seem more likely than your concept of an altruistic defence of Europe by an America on the side of morality.
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#109 - MarcusAureliusII
Listen to yourself Marcus:
"They live in a glass house yet continue to throw stones especially at America instead of trying to put their own house in order. That's all they ever do. That seems to be all they are capable of doing. That is what they resent being pointed out. That is why they hate my postings".
And just who the hell are they? All Europeans? We are all the same are we? Grow up, Marcus. The States might be the next best thing to paradise but it is not the only place on the planet populated by individuals.
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re 98 Homer Simpson
"We were refused service by the Germans who ran the place. It was a clear cut case of anti-semitism as some of our group were Jewish."
How did they know you were Jewish?
Incidentally a Ratskeller is not a beergarden but a bar/restaurant underneath the town hall the German name for which is Rathaus.
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String-a-ling
The Zimmerman telegram revealed by British itelligence was a joke. Mexico had no interest in or intention of attacking the US and would have been badly defeated if it had tried. You don't defend the American Southwest from Mexico by attacking Germany. Also 128 Americans killed on a ship that was violating neutrality by transporting arms to Britain was also not sufficient cause for a war in far away Europe. The US entry into WWI was a foolish effort to keep Europeans from killing each other in what was an endless devouring of entire populations by European war machines. The entry on the side of Britian instead of Germany was due to purely racial motivations owing to the relatively stronger connection to the English than to Germans. From America's point of view, it wouldn't have mattered who won had America stayed out of it. Neither side was any threat to America unlike in WWII. Had America stayed out of WWI, WWII might never have happened.
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#112
And just who the hell are they? All Europeans? We are all the same are we?
I would imagine thats exactly what he thinks. Even though human beings are all individual and every European state is somewhat different to the next, apparently all 500 million of us are the same. I think "grow up" barely suffices with this bloke.
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threnodious, I find much more commonality among Europeans than differences. The differences such as language, food, dress, are superficial. The commonalities in attitudes towards each other, the role of government, and their view of life in general is profound. That America is so different explains why so many Europeans fled Europe to come to America. They didn't go to China or India or South America or Australia, they came to America. Almost certainly over 100 million of them, maybe when taken over time over two hundred million of them. Collectively it may have been the largest human mass migration in history. And all for very good reasons. The migration in the opposite direction rarely anything but a trickle and then usually only for a temporary visit.
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nonsense offramp, a culture is defined as a shared set of values and customs. I find that there is a genuine European culture and I find it repugnant.
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cbw:
" DemocThreat
My guarded sympathy: At least we share that thread of experience... The BBC MODS don't like adults really getting into adult debate... it unnerves their cosy PC fire-side chat version of what all supposedly decent people are about!"
Cheers, we should bury the hatchet and take up a cause against the common enemy. Not the french, in this instance. The mods.
It does make you wonder about the chutzpah of the BBC employees, and how they see themselves in the world.
I have this vision of a group of folks standing around a table, whilst one them lectures about "standards of discourse" and the BBC's supposed "liability" for its content. I see a bunch of 20 somethings with reasonably low paid jobs nodding in agreement to this pseudo legal advice, and feeling a small thrill of importance as they go forward to protect the weak and vulnerable public from itself.
This cowardice in the face of discourse is one of the things which characterizes our modern age. Technology, the party system and day time television have created an environment where the nanny state can thrive and reach ridiculous proportions, like some bloated idiot dinosaur grazing in primeval swamps.
I mean, who are these faceless, nameless minions of this PUBLICLY FUNDED BROADCASTER, who decide what is acceptable and what is not, in terms of free speech?
The answer is that they are 20 something young adults, whose skills and knowledge of the world is objectively no better than anyone you might pluck from the street. But because the party funds the BBC, and because party members believe that they have been ordained by god/marx/newton to guide the sinful/weak/idiotic masses towards salvation/safety/wisdom, we must suffer their "moderation".
The irony that makes me smile is that we are discussing, on this blog, the prolonged waste of public funds.
I mean, that is at the very centre of all these blog postings about the sovereign debt crisis. The reason that debt exists and is getting bigger is precisely because the party system has been wasting money for decades, all over Europe. And "waste" is the right term. The money has been clearly misspent. At the time, the party members who spent it always claimed that they were helping the economy. Not content to be moral experts who are fit to moderate public discourse, the party members saw themselves as economic experts as well. Hence their inspired grand schemes to make the economy better have resulted in a catastrophic situation where the entire continent of Europe faces serious, profound economic collapse.
And while we attempt to discuss that issue on a public forum paid for by taxes, the party members and their minions continue to preach, and dare to "moderate" our discourse.
If it wasn't so offensive and intrusive on a personal level, it would be funny. These people are ridiculous. Who do they think they are? What have they ever achieved, to be in these positions of public power, with no accountability to those who pay for their lifestyles?
And of course, it is difficult to laugh when you know that the waste and foolish financial behaviour of the public sector threatens to send Europe in a prolonged period of widespread misery, poverty and strife.
Show me a party member or a government employee, and I will show you someone who ought to be as humble as christ, but who will likely stand up on a box you paid for, and tell you how to live.
The party system was the curse of the soviet union, and it has become both the curse of europe and the curse of the USA.
Incidentally, Marcus wrote:
"There are pockets of poverty in practically every country on earth even in the wealthy oil states."
Not in Switzerland. In the one state where the party system has been broken down, we have neither poverty nor war. Crime is virtually absent.
Every party member from every state hates and fears the swiss system. It is the end of their free ride, it is the end of their ticket to tell everyone else how to live whilst living from their work.
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Re #102 & #110
Which is it MAscaridII:
According to You it is the English/British set the conditions that very largely contributed to the USA enduring the Civil War.
Even so, of itself Your ludicrously shortened, muddled History neglects the British/English contribution created conditions for the wealth of the South that sustained it & that many thriving Northern Factories, Mines & Mills also employed the 'negro' Labour Force for almost a century post-British rule!
So, 1) were the English at fault causing the war, or, (2) because the USA was confirmed as single entity is it to the credit of the English?
Alternatively, is it possible indeed probable that all those hundreds of thousands of Britons & Europeans that in other posts You present as evidence of the best quitting an alleged decaying Europe found themselves unable to find a Political solution in 90 years of Constitutional debate to an intractible Cultural-Economic issue that had divided States North from South & East/West and in the end used War to find an answer?
Afterall, that IS the standard text book answer of almost every American Historian for the last 150 or so years.
Oh wait! MAscaridII has the definitive answer: No matter it is at odds with practically his Nation's entire Academic & Military experts!
In reality, You write such hotch-potch histories You've no idea what You are on about!
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Here's a tally of the toll the European-American trans Atlantic slave trade as reported in Wikipedia;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_slave_trade
"Distribution of slaves (1519–1867)[62] Destination Percentage
Portuguese America 38.5%
British America (minus North America) 18.4%
Spanish Empire 17.5%
French Americas 13.6%
British North America 6.45%
English Americas 3.25%
Dutch West Indies 2.0%
Danish West Indies 0.3%
The number of the Africans arrived in each area can be easily calculated taking into consideration that the total number of slaves was close to 10,000,000.[63]"
The British importation of slaves to the US was around 645,000. To its other colonies in the Americas about 1,840,000. Many of those probably to work on sugar plantations in the Caribbean to help supply the British navy with rum. Portugal around 3,850,000 probably mostly to Brazil.
The Spanish in the vacinity of 1,750,000 however that crime must be taken in conjunction with the crimes of descimating Meso America from Mexico down to at least Peru by the likes of Cortes, Coronado, and Pissaro. They wiped out the Aztecs, the Incans, and other native American civilizations. Nobody knows how or why the Mayans disappeared but it doesn't seem to have anything to do with Europe, among the few exceptions.
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cbw;
The mines and factories in the North were able to survive with cheap immigrant labor. That is why it was possible to abolish slavery in the North without destroying its economy. That wasn't possible in the South. Some colonies and states abolished slavery long before Britain did. The usual British claim that the US didn't abolish slavery until 1867 oversimplifies the fact that it was abolished in different places in the US at different times. But even after Britain abolished slavery at home, it allowed its citizens to keep the slave trade going to provide African slaves in other places for profit for a generation after.
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#120 - MarcusAureliusII
I know you copied that correctly and it is not your question really but do we know the distinction between the British Americas and the English Americas? Are the English Americas territories established before the Act of Union in 1707?
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Looking at a geographical map of Europe, the gap between Spain and Germany is filled by France. Looking at an economic map of Europe, who will fill the same gap?
therenodious, I don't know or care what name the British brought slaves to the new world from Africa under at different times. By standards of the 21st century these were crimes and are historical facts even if they may not have been seen that way in the centuries they happened in. While there is no changing the past, trying to trivialize them by finding picayune distinctions seems to me to be the same kind of rationalization that keeps Europe from socially developing beyond its sordid past. It remains stubbornly locked in that state indefinitely as it rots from within.
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#120/#121
Thomas Jefferson - slave owner
George Washington - slave owner
Abraham Lincoln - believed that blacks should be repatriated and supported segregation.
All revered by MarcusAureliusII with an almost child-like wonder as the greatest ever Americans. Case closed.
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Marcus, have you seen the comparisons of the current US debt situation and historical examples of similar scenarios?
I was watching a Niall Ferguson lecture recently, and he has been doing some fascinating research on this subject.
It turns out that only one empire in history has been able to pull itself out of a debt crisis of a similar proportion to the current debt crisis facing the USA, without resorting to default or inflationary measures (printing money). That was the British empire between 1815 and 1885, and the special factor in that case was that the brits had the very considerable advantage of the industrial revolution. It seems, from what Fergusons' data shows, that technology was the saviour of the british empire.
Curiously, there is no reason why the USA might not be saved in exactly the same way. Certainly if anyone is going to develop the tech to revolutionize the entire world economy, it will most likely be the USA. Fusion is what I am thinking about here.
But on the other hand, the debt structure of the current US economy makes a startling parallel with both the state of the British empire in 1815 and also one other grand empire: the Russian Tsarist empire of 1900.
Russian before the October revolution was a grand empire, a military superpower that was expanding its influence far and wide. And it was a nominally advanced state, with universities and pockets of high tech industry. But it was hamstrung by debt, massive debt, and when push came to shove in the Russo Japanese war, the strain of the debt of the Russian imperial military became apparent. The formerly advanced and powerful Russian navy had become outdated and was outclassed by the Japanese. The imperial state could not raise sufficient war bonds to prolong the conflict with the much smaller Japanese state.
The rest is history, as they say.
Now this example of a great empire collapsing under the pressures of debt is curious with regard to the USA, because the USA is not "on the brink" of being in the same situation. No way. Currently only about 9% (?) of taxation revenues in the USA go towards servicing interest on public debt.
But the data shows that if the USA keeps running massive "stimulus" deficits, and if interest rates rise because of inflationary policy (printing of money), then the USA will be using 20% of its taxation revenue JUST TO SERVICE ITS DEBT, by 2020.
And if things do not change, by 2040 then 100% of the taxation revenue of the USA will be used to service its debt.
Now of course, that cannot happen. It is practically impossible. You would need to fire every policeman, every solider, every teacher, every government employee of every kind. The state would disappear, and of course then nobody would be left to gather the taxes!
So in historical terms, 25% is seen as the level at which a state begins to collapse into "failed state" territory. In other words, once a government must pay 25% of its tax revenues just in interest on existing debt, then that state is likely doomed, and quickly. Think Austria just prior to WW1, or indeed the Russian imperial empire prior to the october revolution.
And given that figure, it is exceedingly interesting to contemplate what might happen to the USA over the next decade. If the bond markets turn hostile towards the Obama administrations mantra of government spending, the USA could face 20% debt servicing levels within two presidential terms.
And this is where the comparison with Imperial Russia becomes fascinating. Sure, the US military is a thing of immense power and awe. As long as the US government can afford to pay the wages and buy the fuel to keep it going. In 1880, the Russian Imperial navy was an awesome sight to behold, when compared to the fledgling japanese navy.
Anyway, I thought you might find the historical analyses interesting. It is certainly crunch time for the US public. They are either going to see through Obama and his typically obtuse "government stimulus" policy, and begin to make profound changes to the way the US is governed, or they are going to slide closer and closer to a situation where the mighty USA military (I say that without a hint of sarcasm: it is the most awesome military power ever to grace the earth, by far) may find itself betrayed by the international bond markets, and left to flounder for want of money.
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nonsense offramp, you can trivialize or ignore the monumental accomplishments of those men by finding fault in their personal lives to argue their lack of merit but the whole world sees it otherwise.
Two and a half years ago then candidate Barack Obama mentioned the ticking demographic time bomb in Europe. As far as I can tell, nothing has happened in the interim to slow, stop, reverse, or defuse that time bomb. When it will detonate is anyone's guess but as time elapses, the opportunity to do something about it dwindles. When it finally happens Europe cannot say it wasn't warned or that it came as a surprise. As there are no obvious imminent dire external threats to Europe's security anymore other than militant Islamic terrorism is a threat to the entire world, Europe cannot blame its problems on any external factors. Its problems are of its own making and it will have to rely on itself to solve them or suffer the consequences. A five percent reduction of government expenditures in some countries hardly seems like even a small step in the right direction but as a token offered merely for show. It is pathetic yet even this is being strongly resisted. The problem of Moslems living in significant numbers harmoniously in Europe especially in France hardly seems any closer to resolution either.
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MAscaridII
Re #121
No, simply will not do MAscaridII; we've done this one a couple of times: Your 'abolition' of slavery in the USA States doesn't hold up as well You know.
The odd State not having Slave Laws or releasing Child Slaves (as in New England States) is NOT the Abolition of Slavery: You are twisting Your own facts that You have previously presented. Many of those same States still actively sought to 'return' Slaves to their 'Owners' in Slave States (we've been over all this before - - You were misguided or just making it up then & You continue to do so).
1808, the USA banned the Import/Export of Slaves, however, every Slave State was still permitted to 'breed' Slaves & every one of them did so!
You constantly embellish any quarter-truth to favour Your impoverished arguments: Just prior to #121 Your #120 lists the numbers of Slaves - - that is slaves used in the North as well as the South - - cheap European immigrant labour certainly was a factor, but so were Africans & Chinese (which You also go on about elsewhere on this Blog).
The 'keep the slave trade' going point You attempt to make is just plain wrong or, as ever, deliberate distortion by You: March 1807 Slavery was Abolished THROUGHOUT the British Empire (it's why so many 'escaping slaves' from US States not only fled north, they fled all the way to Canada), practically every South & Central American Nation had also Abolished Slavery BEFORE the USA.
Only in 1863, and not by moral conviction, but because he wanted to economically embarrass the South, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation of Slaves Proclamation.
I believe it was President Lyndon Johnson who finally signed the Civil Rights Statutes 103 years later that granted Black Americans Equal Rights with Whites: Something You may like to reflect on as You pause to re-read my #99 reference to the 1930s "Strange Fruit" song - - it wasn't written from imagination MAscaridII, unlike almost everything You contribute on this and any other topic!
By the way, one-up to France (very rare from me), I believe it Abolished Slavery sometime in the Middle Ages in France and for any Slave that reached it. Of course it then ruined all that social-conscience work by enforcing a Despotic Feudalism on its Citizens lasting beyond the era of its assistance to 'liberate' the 13 Colonies from perfidious Albion!
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#123 - MarcusAureliusII
I was actually only enquiring out of curiosity but since you seem incapable of a civil answer to a civil question, try this one.
Any trade arrangement requires two parties - a seller and a willing buyer. If the selling of slaves was, as you say "by standards of the 21st century these were crimes", are not the buyers who then inflicted forced labour on them equally culpable? Ah but I forgot. They were Americans were they not? And Americans can do no wrong.
You accuse me of "trying to trivialize them by finding picayune distinctions seems to me to be the same kind of rationalization that keeps Europe from socially developing beyond its sordid past". Actually I was doing no such thing but your totally one-sided view of history which involves tarring and feathering everything European and whitewashing your own tawdry past is os transparent a ploy as to be hardly worth a second glance.
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dt I could hardly make it through such jibberish. Russia a great militry power before the October 1917 revolution? What a joke. Russia suffered a humiliating defeat by Japan in the Russo-Japanese war in 1905. Its loss was mitigated by negotiations in which Theodore Roosevelt participated. Russia exited WWI because it was militarily defeated. What that has to do with anything is beyond me.
I see no future for fusion energy. I don't think it will ever be made to work. Even if it did, it would be extremely dangerous. Generally all fuel consuming plants including nuclear plants produce lots of waste heat. A fission plant needs a river. A fusion plant would need an ocean to cool it. If the experiment being set up in Southern France ever goes haywire out of control, there could someday be a big hole where south central Europe used to be.
Unless and until the US loosens its monetary policy it will continue to drive itself and the rest of the world bankrupt. Loose fiscal policy with an 800 billion dollar stimulus created 800,000 jobs in America compared to at least 8 million lost as a result of the financial crisis. Between unemployment and underemployment, probaby around 20 to 30 percent of the labor market is affected with many not showing up in official statistics because they have stopped looking for work, their current prospects being hopeless.
The current state of affairs is unsustainable. Talk about what will happen to China's economy in 2040 at this point is ludicrous. China cannot sustain 10% growth for the next 30 years. In fact at the rate it is consuming the world's resources it can't go on much longer. Also China has many other problems. If you want a more accurate look at China's economy, look at GNI instead of being dazzled by GDP. Then look at GNI per capita. It is bleak.
America needs to inflate its way out of its debt. That is how the great depression ended and how every recession in America since has ended. Obama is pursuing the same monetary policy as Hoover did because he is trying to save the banks at the expense of the rest of America. That has to stop soon. America needs an infusion of cash to be able to pay down debt that has been devalued. The only way this can happen is through inflation which means devaluing the currency. At the rate things are going, this will not happen until after Europe is bankrupt. It's on the cusp of it at this very minute. In this regard President Obama is hardly Europe's friend.
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threnodious, of course by the standards of the 21st century the Southern slaveholders were criminals. It was seen that way in the North in the 19th century as well. Unfortunately for the Southerners, they were caught up in a criminal economy that couldn't change without radical upheaval which the war brought. All I've done is point out that it was the British during the colonial era that set up that economy and then sustained it by supplying it with slaves and buying its products.
This thread is typical of how Europeans never learn from their own failures or other people's successes. That is why it goes nowhere. It ignores its failures or trivializes them while it dismisses others sucesses. Yet the proof is in the pudding and in this pudding, in less than two centuries the United States of America arose from being a handful of remote villages run by merchants, tradesmen, and farmers to the pre-emmient society in the history of human civilization. Sure Europe is angry about it but there is nothing it can do and it refuses to learn because it still smugly thinks it is smarter than everyone else. That is one of the things about it I find so repugnant.
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"Russia exited WWI because it was militarily defeated". No it exited WWI because of the revolution to which you referred just one sentence earlier.
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#130
"Rose...to the pre-emmient society in the history of human civilization."
I nearly just wet myself laughing! Pure comedy gold.
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hrenodio thanks - awful military defeat - ahir standing up on end when remembering!
first we were looking for a year to find that Japan;
then travelling by a dozen of ships to it around the whole world (upper North way not open yet:o(
via cape cod? or whatever. Took damn nearly 2 years! to find that Japan we were at war with.
got exhasuted like hell indeed. the most long-lasting and ? how to say, full of endurance and patience! attempt in world history
for one side to find the other side when the two are in war
in fact captains of flagman ships were reporting after 5 months of travel (just!) that they've got no provisions and God willing will of course find the enemy.... eventually... But it'd really be better if St. Petersburg kindly commands them home from mid-way :o))))))))))
because surely they won't be able to drag their feet on the quarterdeck or whatever even if they make it there (God willing)
And yes we were defeated awful!
got the news? ab 2-3 months may be later?
after which sad event put up 10? about million army, to part take in the WWI in Europe
Sheer surprise anyone was left at home able to hold a gun after that smashing defeat by Japan re a couple of rocks. hell knows where.
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As a proud American, I offer this a proof of our moral and cultural superiority..
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/us_and_canada/10588850.stm
Southerners are sometimes referred to a red necks. I wonder....
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cool. you are peaceful people.
can't but compare with our speedy train ? the new one? Moscow -St. petersburg named "sapsan" (a quick kind of steppe bird).
which villages - from all along the route - continuously and laborously try to stop and send off-track :o))))))))) by all means they've got
simply because they don't like it :o))))))))))))))))
without any partisans :o)))))))) or whatever :o))))
unlike the rest of 20 trundle-trundle trains per day - this one is woosh woosh (too speedy) and is said to be a killer, sucking up folks standing too near the route under the wheels - by the air stream
folks cats dogs elk cows and whatever
it's got a hoovering ability of 5 meters. and the platforms of small stations? along its way - are 4.5 metres wide.
so if you simply stand on your platform peacefully-quietly awaiting your local trundle-trundle train - and sapsan wooshes towards you, on its business - it is a (oral) knowledge all around that you better jump off the platform to the ground to the other side of the platform.
it is also advisable to know which side will be the other side :o)))))))))
and to be able to notice it - because it is soundless and appears out of nowhere in a matter of seconds.
that's why the villages along are busy trying to exterminate them all there are :o))))))))) and the railway is busy saying it's all crap and gossip it doesn't suck up folks
but nobody believes it.
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MarcusAureliusII wrote:
"dt I could hardly make it through such jibberish."
Well, clearly you didn't. Try reading what was written, and then think for a while, drink a glass of that good red californian you keep close, and then do some research. THEN grace me with your considered views, dear friend, we shall all rejoice that you have found it within yourself to pick your freaking knuckles off the ground once more.
cbw, I take it that You noted Alice saluting my civilized offer of peace.
I expect that, in respect of this rare opportunity for redemption, you will control yourself with rather more care than we have been accustomed to hither of late, and Marcus will accordingly look to you as a role model of dignified behaviour.
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La viva Espagnia!
ta ra ra ra ra ra raj ra
:o)
(encore)
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alice, I wish you could have been present at the dinner party I attended tonight. A client of mine has a new russian wife (all the best people have at least one, somewhere) and so conversation between my lithuanian wife, the ruski et al turned inevitably to the history of the baltic states.
My wife lost the cultural superiority debate with a shocking mistake. She began a carefully scripted argument about the differences between Lithuanian and Russian borscht, in order to prove with careful reasoning and hard scientific research the huge differences between Russian and Lithuanian cultures. From that, I know from experience, would follow all sorts of marcus-esque implications about cultural superiority.
Unfortunately, midway through her Grand Theory, she digressed into a side story about her aunt who once made borscht according to a completely novel recipe, involving a particular strain of mushroom. The Russian lady, not missing a beat, suggested that her own cousin in the Tartar regions had once used such a diversionary recipe to great effect.
My wife, being an agreeable person and prone to make friends where possible, suggested that this was in no doubt, as her aunts' family also had mattress relations from this region of the soviet union.
Now at that point, it was left to me to explain to the rest of the company that it had been proven without a shadow of doubt that Lithuanian culture was nothing like russian culture at all. I proposed a toast "Psna rodinu!", and can now report that I will be sleeping on the couch.
But my client will be left in no doubt, this is why I get paid the big bucks.
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dt;
"dt I could hardly make it through such jibberish."
Well, clearly you didn't."
dt, there is only so much one human being can stand. If there really is a hell somewhere somehow, it is being forced to sit in front of a TV set watching the eighty-seven trillionth overtime period in a soccer match where neither side scores, nothing ever happens, and it never ends. While I never really cared who won, by the time Spain scored I was only too happy that it was over. I fell asleep during it 11 times and each time I woke up I saw nothing had changed, nothing had happened. A game of croquet would be more exciting. The best part of the game was the karate kick the Netherlands guy landed on the Spain guy's chest. It didn't look like he was going to get up for a moment. Not as good as NHL hockey though.
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cbw, I take it that You noted Alice saluting my civilized offer of peace.
Am I?
Must be missed; need to read again.
I expect that, in respect of this rare opportunity for redemption, you will control yourself with rather more care than we have been accustomed to hither of late -
absolutely! democracythreat :o)
You became all-knowing and kind of bossy :o(
I am getting scared! :o)))))))))))
Well, cool-brushie is also all-knowing - but strangely in his case I am not frightened! :o))))))))))
, and Marcus will accordingly look to you as a role model of dignified behaviour.
well this I leave to you, I am not acquainted with "Marcus" and all.
__________
seriously, hop in sometimes to the "silly talks" place; it still exists;
every 2 days a chatter box gets overflowing and a new one is began automatically. and the prev. editions move down in the list (also readable) (but not "contributable" after it reaches a 1,000 messages)
Total narcotics and all - a swamp.
A silly swamp - at that!
I deteriorate daily :o)))))))
google, let me see if it opens by google search still
yes International Chatter Pavillion in the search window brings you to "International Communication" - which is an umbrella title for all silly things there, the pavillion incl.
It is accomplished with all kinds of ? house refurbishments :o) possible
- flag icons at each message written for translating it into own tongue
various silly emoticons and a red kind of flag on the right side of the page which shows how many people are on-line at the mom and when you click on it - a map opens, showing where is who in the world.
And if you click on that map again - another map opens, showing more detals like city names.
It lies like hell :o)))))) Most of the time we've got a mystery shopper :o)))) hanging, must be on a raft, on the left side of Africa, drifting slowly along. :o)
Must be KGB. Or ? that our ship that was lost.
May be Somali pirates are choosing the most plumpy ones around :o)
But except for this slow drift the rest is alright. It is un-virused don't be scared - best Russian hackers are working on it :o))))))
Joking. simply a couple of IT guys quite clever, three of them, on duty in turns. Un-paid! :o))))) Just for fun.
You can open your own partitions and articles and themes to discuss any time of the day - so the list of themese grows. But nobody goes there :o) - all sit in the chatter pavillion.
I've got a Mad Hatter Tea Party own partition, hosting. But forgot when I've been there last :o)
Moderators are everybody - except for me and a couple of hopeless people other :o)))
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marcus wrote:
"America needs to inflate its way out of its debt."
Yes, your reasoning surrounding this bold statement is convincing. It is also the impression I gather from the more famous economists I respect.
But the consequences for the bond market are profound, and how the bond markets responds to such treatment is an open question.
Can the US currency survive as a world reserve currency if its value is debased further?
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#130 MarcusAurellius
Inter-racial marriages were accepted by USA law in 1967 !!!!
So why are you Blabbering about the 21st Century ?
I thought America defined freedom in the 18th century ?
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Homer Simpson
in *113 I quoted your claim in your *98 contribution:
"We were refused service by the Germans who ran the place. It was a clear cut case of anti-semitism as some of our group were Jewish."
and I asked: "How did they know you were Jewish?"
You still haven't answered.
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#130 MarcusAurellius
Have you ever watched the ´Victory at Sea´ US films ?
The ONLY black person I saw was serving the Marine Officers a meal, all others were white as snow !
´You are a better man than I am Gunga din´ was at least a recognition don´t you think ?
America still has problems with such thoughts, as many demonstrate even today !
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dt;
"Can the US currency survive as a world reserve currency if its value is debased further?"
The real question is can the world stave off bankruptcy if it isn't.
The bond market is in a huge bubble. Anyone who buys long term bonds at fixed rates now is taking a big chance. Smart investors who put their money in US Treasury obligations looking for safety are going short. Nobody knows when the bottom will fall out.
Until the US dollars is devalued, it won't be safe for Europe to devalue either. Once the US jumps, then Europe will have no choice but to follow or risk being priced out of markets even further than it already is. My hunch is that there is a quiet but concerted behind the scenes effort to prop up the Euro. There was great worry including in the US that it would fall precipitously. Whose economy is weaker, the US or Europe's? Which economies are precariously poised to take a tumble due to falling exports if there is another dip in the US as in "double dip" recession? Everything hinges on what Washington will do. I'm not taking any bets. So far the instinct has been to prop up banks by keeping money tight and handing out free money to them by lending to them at zero interest and then taking it back in bonds paying them interest to recapitalize them. That is why there is no credit for businesses including small businesses which are the life blood of American economy nor for many reasonably secure would be home owners who want mortgages.
Will the US still be the world currency? My hunch is yes. The US is in a lot of economic trouble. Other major economies have even worse problems. The US has survived worse.
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Maggie McGuire;
"and I asked: "How did they know you were Jewish?""
I didn't say I am. How did the Nazis know who was Jewish? How did French people know just looking at me when I was in a supermarket reading a label on a can that I was American and come over to me telling me in broken English they'd try to explain to me what it said? People just know these things, that's how.
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noisy little acorn;
"Inter-racial marriages were accepted by USA law in 1967 !!!!"
You think and speak like a European. If you were really an American you'd know every state had its own laws. What happened in 1967, it become federal law to discriminate? That's the same phony argument Europeans use about the end of slavery too. Yet they are the first to tell me how different they all are. Yes, I doubt you are an American, you don't think or talk like one. Maybe a transplant from the UK at most.
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#146
"How did French people know just looking at me when I was in a supermarket reading a label on a can that I was American"
You had the can upside down?
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*146 Homer Simpson claims
"People just know these things, that's how."
R U B B I S H !
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#146 MarcusAurellius
Before going on a trip to Egypt, an Israeli friend told me not to judge Egyptians by their looks.
The Nazis new who were Jewish or not by the insertions in their ´Ahnenpass´ (?). After the ´Full´Jews, then came the others -- 3/4, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8 etc etc until the necessary purity was attained.
America prevented legal race mixture until 1967.
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#147 MarcusAurellius
I agree that was how a number of States maintained race purity.
So what is your problem ?
Nazi Germany allowed mix marriages until Hitler -- Our wonderful country after 1967 !
You don´t agree with me ??????
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90. At 11:07am on 11 Jul 2010, commonsense_expressway wrote:
MA2 prediction/wish list update:
The end of European civilisation as we know it: nope
The collapse of Britain: nope
The impeachment of Obama: nope
The end of Greece: nope
The end of Spain: nope
The end of the Euro: nope
US withdrawal from Europe: nope
US/EU trade war: nope
Imprisonment of Haywood and end of BP:nope
End of UK/US relationship:nope
US withdrawal from NATO: nope
Nuclear strike against Iran:nope
Nostradamus he aint.
_____________________________
Maybe MarcusArmpitII can put some exact dates on those predictions? Or is it just a case of rolling over his predictions when they don't materialize?
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If you never have a dream -- you never have a dream come true !
Correct Marcus ?
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#146 - MarcusAureliusII
Why would they speak to you in any kind of English? You were in France - remember?
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#84 CBW
Please comment properly !
I DO NOT give myself compliments but my accusation stands !
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23. At 11:08pm on 09 Jul 2010, lacerniagigante wrote:
Re 15.
You need some updates regarding your post: Zapatero has been voted last year back in.
So your terrorist myth is a bit outdated...
The housing bubble did not start in 2006, but way before.
---
So your point is.... that the Spanish electorate made the same mistake twice?
The fact remains. The only reason Zapatero was voted into power was because of the Al-Qaeda Madrid bombings.
Funny how he was the most anti-American of Euro politicians, but recently he was falling over himself trying desperately to meet Obama one on one, and Obama not giving him the time of day. I wonder now that Obama has met him and his goth children (and giving him fiscal advice to boot), if Zapatero would have the decency to stand when the US flag passes by during Spanish Day parades.
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Re #155
And, MAscaridII, as a demonstration of the 'Irony of Ironies', I give You this from the wholly oblivious demonstrator par excellence, QOT:
"..Please comment properly!"
Guffaw, chortle, snigger...
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MAII: "How did French people know just looking at me when I was in a supermarket reading a label on a can that I was American"
Hmmmm, I wonder....
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Re #136
No shame (1): "..this rare opportunity for redemption.." from what?
Perchance a "..fork.." in the eyes!
Re #138
No shame (2): The 'bortsch' braggadocio's mixed company!
Tosh & gibberish compounded by fraud!
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CommonSense
Re #132
'Comedy Gold': Yes, I recall it was Corporal Jones declared to Captain Mannering, "..the Yanks, Captain, they don't like it up 'em, Sir!"
Precious moments these... Sharing MAscaridII's fond recollections of a Horse that could Talk!
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WebAlice
Re #140
In all truth I try never to be 'threatening' to anyone, however, I know I over-step the mark on occasion, as most of us do.
Though I'm bound to claim not so often an 'over-step' as to repeatedly slander one People for their history, geography, culture etc.
No, that sort of 'threat' I leave to the peculiarity of style of the domeciled Swiss sage who is so full of his self he thinks to assuage Your doubts by recounting his 'Tales of the Bortsch' Dining Table! He does not say if it were 'hot' or 'cold' and therein, as I'm sure You well know WebAlice, lies a multitude of different occasions.
The 'tale' had a little too much sweetened spinach leaf for my taste, but each to their own, and perhaps it was his wife's Ukrainian cook-book at fault.
Now, WebAlice, might I suggest You try a portion of my wife's Karelian Ragout (Karelian Paisti) for when the Winter's ice-gales are at their height.
Ingredients:
1 pound beef chuck, cube lumps
1 pound lamb (shoulder or breast), cube lumps
1 pound pork shoulder, cube lumps
3 medium onions, sliced
3 teaspoons salt (or none in this health conscious age/perhaps pepper nodules instead)
2 teaspoons ground all-spice
6 whole all-spice
4 cups beef-broth in water
Preparation:
Layer the cubed meats & onions in a pot with tight-fitting lid. Season each layer with with the all-spice (+ salt) until distributed with whole all-spice throughout.
Cover & cook in a very slow oven to boiling and pour over the meat. Cover & cook in a very oven (275) for about 5 hours or until meat is tender.
Serve dish with Boiled/Mashed Potatoes, Lemon Leaf Lettuce Salad, Finnish/Russian Rye bread, warmed butter and Milk or cool Mehu is an ideal drink.
It should serve 6 generous portions.
Enjoy!
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democracythreat,
yes I did miss your @138, honest.
So, borsch - "Za Rodinu! /"to motherland!" - couch. :o(
;o)))))))))
Funny; in the "Smoxford" university (recently instituted, in the "silly getaway blog" - we are all PC and have got a motto "Za Rodiny!" - to Motherlands! (respective, of the bloggers) toast.
And there is a partition What We Cook and How - in which the only food mentioned is "Borsch Int'l" - all possible options and variants of it!
I'm hopeless in the kitchen - but for crying out loud don't see any difference btw those recepies, plus/minus some crap, - there is a Polish one there and a Ukrainian and a Siberian and a Hungarian ! even version and Latvian and Lithuanian I think as well - but after 4-5 recepies the partition came to a halt - because it became sadly clear that you can't write one and the same thing over and over again :o)))))))))))
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But if anything :o)) - for an occasional breakfast you can always hop in into "Bachelor's Cousine" there, where unlucky chaps share high tech knowledge.
When I glanced in last it was mostly about fried eggs, and what to do with "pelmeni", those? meat balls coated in flower flouer fl anyway - the ones sold ready, just to dump into boiling water for a couple of minutes.
First Course recommended there is the insides of them
Second Course is the outer coating eaten separately :o)))))))))))
Dessert is to have them fried :o)))))))) on a frying pan :o))))))))
Refreshments seem to be drinking water in which they were boiled :o))))
And overall I'd say folks are quite creative, in touch circumstances :o)))
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Re #139
IMPOSSIBLE!
Come on, pull the other one:
'..fell asleep 11 times..'
11 divided into 120 = 10.9 ; & even inc. half/full-time intervals that's 11 divided into 140 = 12.7
There is no way MAscaridII managed to stay awake & on topic for almost an entire 13 minutes in a row!
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#129. At 5:28pm on 11 Jul 2010, MarcusAureliusII wrote:,
"I see no future for fusion energy. I don't think it will ever be made to work."
I seem to recall that your great scientist Edison made similar scaremongering claims about AC compared to his own DC product, and that it was as always for the US driven more by his desire to have a monopoly on electricity. Edison should have stuck to light bulbs, but then he didn't actually invent those even, did he, as he just used the law to challenge existing patents. In the case of fusion what's the matter MAII, are you scared that Europe might have something the US doesn't?
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"Russia exited WWI because it was militarily defeated". No it exited WWI because of the revolution to which you referred just one sentence earlier."
Neither. Russia has signed a humiliating Brest-Litovsk ceasefire, because Lenin was a German spy shipped in a sealed wagon by the German General Staff with specific indstructions to make sure that Germany would not have to fight at two fronts simultanously.
[Lenin did exactly what his masters told him to do]
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"And that is why I will keep posting them."
MA2/AG: The reason you post here is because your fellow countrymen have driven you from the US board. It is difficult to use your teenager defense of 'they hate because I am American' when it is Americans verbally destroying you. ^^
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#93 - powermeerkat
Chapman faces no charges in Russia and was not extradited, she was expelled - simply a mechanism to facilitate the prisoner swap.
Actually some media in Russia suggest Anya Kushchenko should be prosecuted for money laundering. :)
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Re #134 MaudDib
That mooning had nothing to do with Circle 11.
And Laguna Niguel is a fine place.
Especially for train spotting.
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Americans and Canadians were denied service in a place of public accoomodation by the very people American soldiers were risking their lives to defend and American taxpayers were footing the bill for. It doesn't matter what the reason was, that was the beginning of my realization that Europe was no friend to America. As the old saying goes with friends like Europe America doesn't need enemies. Europe has demonstrated time and again it is America's enemy. There was some justification for defending it anyway during the cold war but no longer. Europe has chosen the path of war with America or as Chirac put it confrontatin and America should respond in kind looking out only for its own interests...just like every other country does. There are a lot of things America could do on its own behalf that would have serious adverse consequences for Europe. I say America should do all of them.
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80.democracythreat wrote: Spain cannot stagnate. Nor can it hope for low growth, unless collapse and negative growth is "low growth".
The reason is found in the nature of the Spanish current account deficit and the bond markets.
Spain currently spends 120 billion euros more than it takes in tax revenues.
Its about to get worse. Spain is a net recipient in the EU, but its regional subsidies are running out and were already promised to the 'new' member states. So, in 3 years time, starting january 1st 2014, Spain's deficit will grow by another 5-6 billion a year.
Maybe they should ask Germany for a bailout, and I am sure that EU-philes will then condemn Germany for saying no.
O how I rue the day I decided not to bet money on the housing bubble bursting in Spain, it was so predictable, when you see housing prices strucurally going up with percentages that are above inflation, you know something is wrong, and Spain was an extreme example.
I guess they can always keep stealing African fish. Stealing? Yes that's what I call it, I do not recognize the payments the EU makes to African leaders as legitimizing it in any way. I call those payments bribes. Africa really needs to start exploiting its own fishing waters instead of letting French and Spanish trawler fleets fish 'em empty.
Apart from being a net recipient of regional subsidies, Spain also profits from the CAP and CFP policies of the EU. And we all know those were designed to protect French farmers and Spanish fishermen from African competition. Free trade area? Don't make me laugh. And anyway, this wouldn't be funny even it if wasn't so serious. How do we let criminal EU keep screwing African farmers and fishermen over? We must put a stop to the criminal policies that are CFP and CAP.
CAP and CFP are two main reasons for the enduring poverty and despair of Africans. EU shame on you, EU-philes shame on you for supporting it. At least I can say I've always been against it from the day I understood how it worked.
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#157 CBW
My mistake !
I had assumed normal reading capabilities and prefer less ´talking down´ to those subordinates you esteem.
However the questioning of the Societies where both Marcus and yourself have experience, is disturbingly arrogantly lacking.
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re: Russia in World War I aka 'The Great War'
Russia certainly was militarily defeated, by early 1917 at the latest every time the Germans made even a token effort on the eastern front they made breakthroughs everywhere. Russia's troops were tired of war and its supply system was an even bigger shambles than it had been at the beginning. Only a huge number of men kept it alive as long as it did. But there is no doubt Russia was defeated, the only question was who would sign a ceasefire.
After the provisional government of prince Lvov had refused to give up, and later Kerensky's provisional republic (second provisional government) also refused. Once Lenin's bolsheviks were in control, a ceasefire was inevitable and duly signed in Brest-Litovsk. Lenin was however not doing the German's bidding, though he had made them believe he would. Lenin gambled that Germany would not win on the western front and would eventually be forced back and sign a ceasefire of its own, in which at least parts of Brest-Litovsk would be undone. And so it was.
Lenin, the tyrant who replaced that other tyrant (the czar) may have been brutal, but he was no fool.
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Neither. Russia has signed a humiliating Brest-Litovsk ceasefire, because Lenin was a German spy shipped in a sealed wagon by the German General Staff with specific indstructions to make sure that Germany would not have to fight at two fronts simultanously.
[Lenin did exactly what his masters told him to do]
Sigh :o(
It's always pleasant to hear that troubles come from outside. I wish they were!
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With outside ones we still have , how to say, easy hand.
:o))))))))))))
given the circumstances, every time.
The most difficult thing is to struggle with yourself - even! how to say
forces. simply impossible :o(, to win. you just start winning - and ?
and it gets balanced.
ss anyway to put it politely all the same again
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Anya Kushchenko
why nee
after all - a serious! married woman !
:o))))))))))))
or what happenned to him? I don't know, should look it up.
Overall still strange. I thought the angle has been traditionally as un-rememberable person as possible.
The kind, I wrote before, that you don't notice in the room for 2 hrs. and can't remember the looks for the life of you - after.
special patented looks and special patented ability (looks to me a gift, not acquired tastes - to blend into landscape.
well, landscape don't know let's say to blend into any furniture style Жщ))))))
And Anna is the opposite. and behaved ? "oppositedly" ?
New trends among old trends or what
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I would never fit. :o)))))))))) I am unforgettable. and besides that's not family traditions so must be against the rules.
though...
funny, of course.
but so nervous a job! One should really be very how to say, not nervous.
Ukrainian girl, judging by surname by the way.
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#170 MarcusAurellius
Much like black and colored soldiers in America ?
Europe was like heaven for many of them, with no daily Institutionalized Racism !
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Germany needs hard work to build strong character. The "good time charlie" days of Hitler are long over. Economic prosperity breeds confidence. Spain relies on productive industry from the north of Europe.
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noisy little British transplant acorn;
"Much like black and colored soldiers in America ?
Europe was like heaven for many of them, with no daily Institutionalized Racism !"
No, it was defacto racism. Even more insidious. Still exists in Europe today. Spain and Italy are two very racist societies, Italy perhaps the worst in europe but many others very bad.
One big difference, America has recognized its problem and is fixing it. Europe refuses to even open its eyes. That's the difference between winners and losers.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
178.quietoaktree wrote: #170 MarcusAurellius
Much like black and colored soldiers in America ?
Europe was like heaven for many of them, with no daily Institutionalized Racism!
How was it for the jews in Europe at the time? Something institutionalized 'racism', to put it mildly?
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"first we were looking for a year to find that Japan;
then travelling by a dozen of ships to it around the whole world (upper North way not open yet:o(
via cape cod? or whatever. Took damn nearly 2 years! to find that Japan we were at war with."
Rather clever of them to hide right out in the open where you could find them on any map. Who would have thought to look for them there? The Chekka/KGB wasn't around yet to send spies to the west to buy Rand McNally world atlases and send them back to Russia.
A hundred years later they want to find out what the American administration is thinking. Their spies still haven't got the hang of operating a VCR to tape TV news interview shows using the built in timer yet and now they're all but obsolete. I'll be the ones the Russians own all flash 12:00 all the time. Their forte' still seems to be assassination by poisoning.
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Sean56Z
Re #156
"..the 'good time charlie' days of Hitler are long over.."
'goodtime charlie' & 'Hitler' in the same sentence must be one of the most curiously inappropriate mixed-metaphors of all ever to reach these Blog pages!
'..long over..'. Evidently: As in 65 years ago! So, what exactly are you on about 65 years after the event!?
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@64 Macro wrote: "The depth of hatred for Europe in America is so pervasive nobody even bothers to talk about it anymore"
yeah, that explains the boat-loads of American tourists who flock to Europe all year round. And all the money they spend helping support the European welfare state must drive you mad. :)
For my part, I look forward to my twice-per-year trip to europe (always including vienna where we have a home) with the next one scheduled for mid-august. I plan to celebrate my birthday in a Viennese Heuriger enjoying blood sausage washed down with zweigelt.
Perhaps you can take some solace, however, in that I drive my Viennese neighbors mad with the amount of barbequeing I do. Knowing the viennese I am frankly surprised they haven't called the police....
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#180
"New York, NY, June 11, 2002 … A nationwide survey released today by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) shows an increase in the number of Americans with anti-Semitic attitudes, reversing a ten-year decline and raising concerns that "an undercurrent of Jewish hatred persists in America."
The national poll of 1,000 American adults conducted April 26 through May 6, 2002 found that 17% of Americans - or about 35 million adults - hold views about Jews that are "unquestionably anti-Semitic
Boston, MA, June 15, 2004 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) reports that a series of apparently unrelated anti-Semitic and racist incidents have occurred in Manchester, Salem and Hudson, New Hampshire over the past month.
Los Angeles, December 16, 2004….The Hate Crimes Report released by the Los Angeles County Commission on Human Relations today shows that, while hate crimes are down from their post-9/11/2001 highs, Jews continue to be the most frequently targeted religious group, now accounting for 84% of religious-based hate crimes
"We are also concerned that hate crimes against African-Americans continue to account for a majority of racial hate crimes
Denver, February 25, 2004 ... The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) expressed outrage over a sign placed in front of a Denver church that stated: "Jews killed the Lord Jesus
In recent days, ADL has responded to incidents of hate graffiti discovered on synagogues in Florida and California:
December 17, 2009 … As communities across the country celebrate Hanukkah, there has been a series of anti-Semitic incidents targeting public displays of menorahs.
The Anti-Defamation League has fielded reports of at least seven incidents this year, including the desecration of public menorahs displays in New York, Illinois, and Florida
San Francisco, CA, October 12, 2007 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) strongly condemns the August 30 anti-Semitic assaults that allegedly occurred on the campus of San Francisco State University as well as in a San Francisco nightclub"
No additional comment required.
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Since 12.30 today Roman Polanski has been free to move around as he wishes to, the spokeswoman of the Swiss justice, Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, has said. The country is NOT going to extradite him to USA.
Would have been great if the Swiss authorities had found out this Winther when Polanski won a silver bear in Berlin.
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#185 - DiscoStu_d
Just pop across the border to Hungary. We are crazy about barbecues here.
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First world war is not a common knowledge thing in Russia. We forgot it entirely, like, it didn't leave a scar in the ? cognitive field to say it scientifically somehow.
The impressions we've got were so blissfully out-shadowed, tucked backward, behind the scenes? done out away with - by the following events! :o)))))))
That one doesn't see First World War behind the mammoth. A minor nuance , :o)))), like.
The massive turn-around of real tectonic shields, when the ground under Russia like, moved, and the Civil war that broke out immediately after - these wiped out the prev. memories.
By all looks we were part-taking in it, somehow :o))))) - simply judging by q-ties tossed in, and by the q-ties lost - 5 million. Again, and again - like nobody clever else :o(
Reasons for the war are a mystery :o))))))))) those.. someone.. shooting at someone... Principa whatever - who are all these people? :o)))))))))
for the occasion in St. Petersburg - this all remember because normally it was prohibited as revolutionary - but on the occasion of French president and some ministers - heaps arrived - flowers, wreaths and all extravaganza and decorations - real huge party! the city still remembers.
well that Marseulleuse was suddenly found to be the French offical state hymn and was allowed for a week. :o) All sang and poked fun at policemen.
And by the end of the party tsar agreed to take part in that mysterious war.
That's all.
The rest was taking place far away, nobody knows, and the reason nobody understood to this day - as the Germans didn't attack us.
So no one was enthusiastic initially, during, after, or now.
Like, a mistake. Such a feeling.
In practical terms we know - the war began for us when a French huge and festive delegation arrived to St. Petersburg, asking us to join them.
There were parties and receptions and mass outdoor events, ships and flags and tsars strolling around in all directions :o)
Marseilleuse was allowed to be sang :o)
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To summarize - I would like to stress enormous Russian in-put into that war. making and victory. once again - I do think we are by-sided in that - what's new - western history o:)))))))))))
Two - re were we defeated or not - really donn't care and don't think anyone in Russia ever did or does.
Why not to be defeated, after all, if it's not about Russia but about where and what I am at a loss - it's not about our land.
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To Atomic_Mash, the Spanish public voted the PP out, rather than the Socialists in, because they felt the PP could not be trusted with the truth. There was too much media distortion and political machination for the Spanish public to stomach after the Atocha bombing. I listened to an LSE expert on the BBC in the morning of that day commenting that it most likely wasn't ETA but al-Qaida. A voice of reason subsequently lost in the maelstrom. I was amazed and appalled at how much coverage was given, even on the BBC, to Spanish government ministers and the like peddling the line that ETA had been responsible for the attack. Journalists in Madrid for domestic and international media were nigh on threatened into putting out the PP doctrine.
To claim that Spaniards caved in to terrorists is to disregard the part the PP played in its own downfall.
As for the saving banks in Spain, regional governments around the country, and even the Catholic church in the case of the recently failed Cajasur, have considerable control over their business. There's altogether too much meddling by politicians in banking and by bankers in politics in Spain.
And as for Spain's economic woes, they were already being stoked during the PP government. Too many public works projects were driven by the construction industry rather than by demand. And the supposed deregulation of the utilities was laughable: we went from public monopolies to what were little more than private monopolies controlled by Aznar's friends, Telefónica being a prime case in point. You can draw whatever inferences you choose from both these points.
The fact that Rodrigo Rato was so woeful at the IMF should have alerted financial commentators and analysts that things in Spain were not all they had been cracked up to be. Zapatero certainly has been incompetent in the way he has handled Spain's economy, but he is not solely to blame.
And as for unemployment, few employers think they are responsible for staff training and instead leave it all to academic and government bodies. Training is therefore well behind what industry and the economy need. Which in turn leaves Spanish companies behind their competitors in other countries in terms of skills, productivity and quality. A lot of companies want their cake and eat it: they want to be able to dismiss staff who no longer have the skills required and to do so cheaply, leaving the taxpayer (often the EU taxpayer given the amount of EU funds given to Spain for training) to pick up the tab for training and the Spanish taxpayer to pick up the welfare bill.
The PP needs to clear out a significant number of the Aznar generation of politicians, including Rajoy, if the party is to gain broader support across the country. They remain tainted in the eyes of many voters who remember Atocha.
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#182mrv512
The mixed marriage point was mentioned with #151.
There was no apartheid system in place in Germany before the Nazis or after.
In America it was in place UNTIL 1967 --- with remnants continuing TODAY.
Either you have a very short memory, are too young to know recent American History or you are a relative of Marcus ?
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179 sean56z wrote:
"Germany needs hard work to build strong character. The "good time charlie" days of Hitler are long over. Economic prosperity breeds confidence. Spain relies on productive industry from the north of Europe."
Are you real? Do you know anything about Germany,Europe and the EU at all?
And at 182 mvr512 asks in reply to quietoaktree's assertion that Europe was like heaven for black and coloured soldiers '...how was it for the jews in Europe at the time..?'
The time quiet oak tree was referring to was post 1945 when black and coloured American soldiers were first stationed here and came into contact with ordinary people who held no prejudice against them and often invited them into their homes, something they had not encountered in their own country. Many of the American military tried to discourage this and there were instances of army officers going to public houses to tell landlords to provide separate rooms for black soldiers. As a rule they were advised by the owners in no uncertain terms to mind their own business.
Recent history is littered with many cases of institutionalised racism by the American civil and military authorities. I also seem to remember that black American GI's were not allowed to take part in the liberation parades in post war Paris.
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Discounted;
"For my part, I look forward to my twice-per-year trip to europe (always including vienna where we have a home) with the next one scheduled for mid-august."
"I drive my Viennese neighbors mad with the amount of barbequeing I do. Knowing the viennese I am frankly surprised they haven't called the police...."
If they do and you are arrested, when you get to the police station you might find that Sean56Z was wrong when he said;
"..the 'good time charlie' days of Hitler are long over.."
Hitler was Austrian.
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Pegyy;]
"The time quiet oak tree was referring to was post 1945 when black and coloured American soldiers were first stationed here and came into contact with ordinary people who held no prejudice against them and often invited them into their homes, something they had not encountered in their own country."
So you and the acorn are saying that the signs Brits posted that said "no coloureds" that even I've seen photos of and the animal noises that Spanish sports fans grunt when African athletes are playing a match in Spain is due to American contamination? A likely story.
And the murder of Stephen Lawrence and the aftermath that revealed institutionalized racism in the British legal system was also do to American influence?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Stephen_Lawrence
And the skinheads, those are the result of American influence too?
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. Europe is rampant with racism. It's just its dirty little secret.
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Please, moderators, could you in fact be less moderate as to the number of posts you remove. You'd get more on-topic debate and probably far more individual readers and contributors.
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at 194 our Homer says:
"Hitler was Austrian".
Blimey, was he really? I bet not many people on this blog knew this!
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Peggy;
"Blimey, was he really?"
Cockney!
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cool_brush_work wrote:
"In all truth I try never to be 'threatening' to anyone, however, I know I over-step the mark on occasion, as most of us do."
The natural charm of CBW listing the first of his virtues is somehow undermined by the fact that he is essentially making the argument that other people do it, so it can't be bad. And anyway he doesn't do it.
But just when the objective reader might be doubting the adult content of the reasoning on display, we are given further detail of virtues we may wish to take into consideration. CBW writes:
"Though I'm bound to claim not so often an 'over-step' as to repeatedly slander one People for their history, geography, culture etc."
At this point, I believe the medical term is 'raving delusion'. We are witnessing a theoretically sentient being in a state of profound turmoil.
In any case, the news in Europe is that the Swiss justice department are refusing to hand Polanski over to the Yankee lynch mob.
The lady in charge of that is Ms Schlumpf. Or something. I know she comes from canton Graubunden, which is the Swiss equivalent of Montana, or even Alaska, and also that she is a member of the swiss far right SVP party. Those are the charming folks who post pictures of black sheep being kicked out by white sheep, and who crusade against minarets and so forth.
Anyway, the SVP hate the USA this week. They hate everyone who isn't a frustrated Swiss patriot. They are those sort of folks.
So I am reasonably certain this will backfire in the face of the SVP. Switzerland and the USA do a lot of business with each other, and the average Swiss citizen is not fond of pedophiles or rapists.
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I think something goes wrong here as this seems to be a blog about WWII.
Actually it isn´t. Guilt is alsways individually, never collective.
An uncle of my mother has been killed at concentration camp in Austria for saying something about Hitler - I am born after war and I say: Just because I am German doesn´t necessarily man that I am a criminal Nazi.
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200. At 8:15pm on 12 Jul 2010, voice_germany
Berlin,
I think it was in a German paper I read that The Guardian has re-phrased John Cleese's "Don't mention the War" to "Don't mention the four." Britons have a lot of humour, as I think everybody in Europe knows.
You might know that German writers of many kinds have been occupied with the matter of collective guild. They of course had gnawing feeling that such a thing exists, and John Cleese is very frank about it in "Don't mention the War".
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To voice_germany (200):
The comments sections goes always crazy right about after 100-200 comments, it then devolves to reminiscence of WW2 before turning into a spitting match where there are no winners.
I would suggest on not getting on these matches because they are never ending. I totally got tired of these discussions thus now refuse to talk about anything else than the post-war Europe and the European Union. I would recommend that decision for anybody scrolling around these forums.
However, excuse my indiscretion, but to make a point about your comment, a note about lesson learned...
Case:
"uncle of my mother has been killed at concentration camp in Austria for saying something about Hitler"
Lesson learned:
When in doubt, just say... "Honestly, I think we should just trust our president in every decision he makes and should just support that, you know, and be faithful in what happens."
By the way, 10 points to first who guesses right who said this immemorial quote...
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#198. At 6:22pm on 12 Jul 2010, MarcusAureliusII wrote:
"Peggy;
"Blimey, was he really?"
Cockney!"
OMG, he's an expert in cockney now, what a pirate ship, maybe his Johnny Haynes have become scrambled.
You say "Europe is rampant with racism. It's just its dirty little secret.", it's certainly plagued with legions of HR lawyers and snoopers who see racism under every stone there is, and for that I do blame your wonderful US legal litigation culture where nobody is ever responsible for being just plain stupid (common practice in the US don't you agree). Likewise here, if you claim there is racism often enough the supposed victims start to either believe it or as now use those false claims to their profit.
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@ 188 Threnodio. "Just pop across the border to Hungary. We are crazy about barbecues here"
I'd love to. Can I borrow your grill? :)
@194 Macro: "Hitler was Austrian". Huh? Don't quite get your point (not the first time I've failed in this regard....)
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@202 Jukka. Brittney Spears
And if I am first in the reply how do I collect these 10 points and what can I do with them? And if not first, can I get 5 points for effort?
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#195 - MarcusAureliusII
"And the murder of Stephen Lawrence and the aftermath that revealed institutionalized racism in the British legal system was also do to American influence?"
If you must veer off topic in order to score points, at least have the grace to get your facts right. Macpherson concluded that the Metropolitan Police Force was "institutionally racist" - not the British legal system.
Actually, it could not possibly be so because there is no such thing. There is the law of England and Wales, the law of Northern Ireland and the law of Scotland. Which, by the way, brings us back to one of your hobby horses because it was the Scottish system which released your alleged Lockerbie bomber - nothing to do with Britain or Westminster.
And please don't give us any more of your bovine excrement about 'not caring' about the facts because you simply failed to grasp them.
#200 - voice_germany
"I am born after war and I say: Just because I am German doesn´t necessarily man that I am a criminal Nazi".
Excellent post and well said. Most decent people will congratulate Germany on coming to terms with its past and moving on to greater things.
#203 - Buzet23
Ah, but that is only half of the double whammy. By convincing the more gullible of us that Hitler was German and Beethoven was Austrian, they pulled off the greatest PR con stunt in history. I believe they are working on a plan to convince us that Beethoven was a war criminal and Hitler was deaf.
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Buzzard;
Aye guv-nah, I got 'er dead to rights I 'ave.
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#204 - DiscoStu_d
"I'd love to. Can I borrow your grill? :)"
Certainly can. Lake Balaton is about half way. Bring mosquito spray:-)
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Thet want to change my "nickname".
But I feel like a prisoner on the "EU".
When I was in Switzerland and Iceland I had this feeling of being free of the Monster.
Presumably somebody has complained.
The "EU" does seem to be trying to deal with people who criticise it in an unacceptable way.
See further posts.
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"When Jacques Chirac pardoned more than a thousand politicians who had been found guilty of corruption, no French newspaper so much as alluded to the fact that they had been accused. Indeed, when Nigel Farage, the UKIP leader, pointed out that one of these politicians had been nominated as a European Commissioner, he was told by the President of the European Parliament to withdraw his remarks or risk prosecution."
Daniel Hannan
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100046878/will-nicolas-sarkozy-be-brought-down-by-le-guido-francais/
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"But sometimes you don't need to be downloading pdf files from economists to find a forecast worth listening to. In an interview in this morning's Daily Telegraph, Jim Rogers, the US investment guru who is usually held in the same regard as Warren Buffett, gives the most perceptive and least wordy forecast on Europe's outlook I've seen. He says it all in one line: 'If someone told me they were building a factory in Europe I would have every right to ask them if they were stupid.'"
Mary Ellen Synon in Brussels
http://synonblog.dailymail.co.uk/
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#212 - EUprisoner209456731
Oh well, if it's in the Daily Mail, it has to be true.
By the way, are you European?
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To DiscoStu_d (205):
Ladies and gentleman, we have a winner!
Here you are, your 10 points!
Now son, what are you going to do with your 10 points?
...I'm going to Disneyland!
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#207
"Aye guv-nah, I got 'er dead to rights I 'ave"
(shudders)
1)A cockney wouldn't use "aye" - thats the north, or Scotland, or Elizabethan pirates
2)It's "bang to rights"
Dick van Dyke has a lot to answer for. Still, 5/10 for effort
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213. At 10:31pm on 12 Jul 2010, threnodio_II wrote:
"#212 - EUprisoner209456731
Oh well, if it's in the Daily Mail, it has to be true.
By the way, are you European?"
Threnodio, Old Boy!!
I didn't realise you felt like that about the Daily Mail!
I cannot say that I have the same faith in it that you have. But it could be true. It is certainly more likely to be true than anything said by one of those people who promised us a referendum and then denied us our referendum and our democratic rights.
How do your Budapest barmen friends feel about that?
Am I European?
I should jolly well say so!
I love Europe! All those languages! All those recipes!!!!!!!!!
All those dances!
All those lovely ladies who have been kind enough to dance with undeserving little me!!
Mamma Mia!!!
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BBC!
You have got me confoosed!
Be gentle with me! I'm from Suffolk!
I thought you were going to ban me from calling myself EUprisoner etc.
Was that message a mistake?
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threnodious;
"Actually, it could not possibly be so because there is no such thing. There is the law of England and Wales, the law of Northern Ireland and the law of Scotland."
Trivial distinction.
"Which, by the way, brings us back to one of your hobby horses because it was the Scottish system which released your alleged Lockerbie bomber - nothing to do with Britain or Westminster."
Not alleged but convicted by a jury in a court trial in Scotland where the carefully assembled forensic evidence was presented. NOT a trivial distinction! Or don't you think Megrahi got a fair trial. Perhaps you would have preferred he be tried in a Sharia court. They have those now in Britain too. That may be the future of the British legal system...and if it is, Anglos will be the wrong race unless they convert to Islam.
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Re: #211.
does anybody know if Nige did withdraw?
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185. At 2:58pm on 12 Jul 2010, DiscoStu_d wrote:
"...
For my part, I look forward to my twice-per-year trip to europe (always including vienna where we have a home) with the next one scheduled for mid-august. I plan to celebrate my birthday in a Viennese Heuriger enjoying blood sausage washed down with zweigelt.
Perhaps you can take some solace, however, in that I drive my Viennese neighbors mad with the amount of barbequeing I do. Knowing the viennese I am frankly surprised they haven't called the police...."
I was sailing off the South Coast of Bohemia recently and thought I smelt a Barbie!
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218. At 00:05am on 13 Jul 2010, MarcusAureliusII wrote:
'threnodious;
"Actually, it could not possibly be so because there is no such thing. There is the law of England and Wales, the law of Northern Ireland and the law of Scotland."
Trivial distinction. '
EUpris: Rubbish!
MAII!:
Budapest consists, so I have been told, of two places: Buda and Pest.
Buda is on one side of the river and Pest is on the other.
Supposing Threnodio lives in Buda and you visited him - there would be pests on both sides of the river!
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EUPris;
"I was sailing off the South Coast of Bohemia recently and thought I smelt a Barbie!"
At that distance it was more likely Ken.
"Budapest consists, so I have been told, of two places: Buda and Pest."
I'm sure threnodious lives with the other pests.
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#195 MarcusAurellius
America, Europe and the UK has its racist bigots ---but that is not the point you are attempting to disprove by using evading tactics.
The South African Apartheid system, Naziism and your ´Americanism´ are all institutionalized Racism.
Marriage, voting, Military, restaurants, swimming pools, Baseball (and other sports), buses, schools, colleges, hospitals etc etc. --- WERE ALL SEGREGATED.
What are you trying to defend ???
Then you insulted my intelligence by posting a link to a useless list of our American historical documents, the likes of which are written by most groups demanding their rights from oppression, although seldom fulfilled.
Call ´a spade a spade´ and don´t use lies or ignorance to ´Whitewash´our recent or past bloody Racist history !
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noisy little British acorn, there was nothing to insult.
BTW, any European countries have any leaders who are from racial minorities in the coutry they govern....in living memory? And I'm not talking about Scots like Gordon Brown as PM of England.
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"Ukrainian girl, judging by surname by the way."
When her dad was being hired he was not asked about his ethnicity.
Georgian, Russian, Ukrainian - same difference.
[NKVD/KGB being an equal opportunity employer]
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"Europe was like heaven for many of them, with no daily Institutionalized Racism !"
Oh, really? :) Go to France or Germany and see for yourself.
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Re discrimination in Spain...
Why 'Europeans' think Catalans want so badly out?
[not to mention Basques]
P.S. Ever tried to be a Gypsy in Italy? ;)
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"When I was in Switzerland and Iceland I had this feeling of being free of the Monster."
Roman Polanski is finally free. And out of Switzerland. ;)
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#212 - EUprisoner209456731
"How do your Budapest barmen friends feel about that?"
They tell me they can always tell the British - they are the only ones who can't speak English:-)
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#221 - EUprisoner209456731
Budapest is actually an amalgam of three cities - Buda, on the west side of the Duna (Danube, Marcus), Óbuda (Old Buda), which is what remains of the medieval city north of Buda and also on the west side. Pest is on the east side. Buda is hilly and atmospheric whereas Pest is almost flat lending itself splendidly to the construction of wide boulevards designed and almost succeeding in being even grander than those of empire Paris. It's a beautiful city. You should try it some time.
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#222. At 01:03am on 13 Jul 2010, MarcusAureliusII wrote:
"EUPris;
"I was sailing off the South Coast of Bohemia recently and thought I smelt a Barbie!"
At that distance it was more likely Ken."
That's funny, I didn't think my old adversary Ken was able to afford such extravaganza now that he is no longer Mayor of London and able to use the public purse. Still, good old BBC is doing it's best to promote his chances of being Labour's candidate for the next Mayoral elections as he was on the BBC at least twice Yesterday. It reminds me of the old saying 'You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.', Ken learnt the hard way that 'the worm turns', but can't take the hint as the lure of egotistical power is too strong.
"BTW, any European countries have any leaders who are from racial minorities in the coutry they govern....in living memory? And I'm not talking about Scots like Gordon Brown as PM of England."
Sarkozy? if being of Hungarian origin is not a racial minority in France I don't know what is, or are you one of those who claim only difference in colour means difference in race. As for McClown he was from a different race or have you forgotten that Celts are not the same race as Anglo-Saxons.
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#224
"BTW, any European countries have any leaders who are from racial minorities in the coutry they govern..."
Nope. 1.5 years of a black man in charge, who you hate and claim is nothing more than an unqualified token, and you conveniently ignore 233 years of white, northern european, male,middle class political elite rule. Lets see who is elected next time, if the winner is black or a woman, or from outside the Washington or old money bubble, I'll "eat my shorts" Homer. The chance of the ordinary schmo becoming President is, ironically, identical to my chance of becoming King of England. Actually if I married Princess Beatrice and bumped off Charles,William, Harry,and Andrew I'd have more chance of sitting on the throne than the average minority American has of being President. But, i dont fancy her, so thats out.
I really really hope Diane Abbott is Britain's next PM, for both comedy value as she would be truly terrible, but to watch your jaw drop as Britain elects a black woman PM. I'd pay to see that.
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156. At 03:16am on 12 Jul 2010, Atomic_Mash wrote:
"So your point is.... that the Spanish electorate made the same mistake twice?"
Surely they must be stupid. But no more than the US electorate who voted in GW Bush four years after he was installed by the judges.
If the destiny of Spanish leaders is to suck up to American presidents (according to your illuminated view of the world) at least Zapatero is pulling the sleeve of Obama while Aznar wanted to be GW Bush's (second) poodle :-)
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"When I was in Switzerland and Iceland I had this feeling of being free of the Monster."
You know where you want to move then, don't you? This reminds me of how persistent all those people who hate the EU are at staying in the EU. If you don't like it - seriously, this is a large enough planet we're living on for you to find a place for you outside the EU. And you wouldn't even have to move very far as you correctly pointed out yourself.
And to all those who predicted thed end of the Euro at the beginning of the Greek crisis - where are they now? And what happened to the Euro's imminent demise? Are we paying for our food with francs and deutschmarks now?
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47. At 12:05pm on 10 Jul 2010, cool_brush_work wrote:
"Jukka_Rohilla, ThrenodioII, ChrisArta, Mathiasen, Lacerniagigante etc.
Schengen!
The Criminals' & Terrorists' FRIENDSHIP CHARTER!"
Looks like you had the time of your life CBW. Glad you enjoyed the goodies of a border free world.
What you don't mention is the UKGB agents following you.
UKGB1: "Yuri, is he still under your sight? CBW a very dangerous subversive from the Isles. Spends his life plotting the demise of our the EUSSR [EU Schengen Subsocialist Republic]. Must watch him."
UKGB2: "No worries, Vladya, all is under control. He just checked into the Hotel, Misha didn't even ask him about the passport. CBW looks baffled. And a bit annoyed I must admit that no one cares about his subjection to Her Majesty our Queen. He's a good lad, we should report that :-)"
UKGB1: "Ok, but please don't let him fade out of sight. He could post an article on HYS and rally more dissidents to his cause."
UKGB2: "I'm so tired of these stingy EUSSR leaders, they should fit all the continent with CCTV's the way we have it in the free territory London. So we can relax instead and watch the football game... Though we never get past that second round."
UKGB1: "Watch your tongue, comrade. You know Pavel the Octopus can detect every little straying of your mind!"
UKGB2: "You bet. Pavlo knows best. I wonder why they censured that time when they put the Union Jack in one box and the EUSSR flag in another."
UKGB1: "You ****! Why there is no "Britain" football team, and not even a EUSSR one for that matter. Now shut up and get back to your post, will you?"
UKGB2: "I wonder why they don't give us a referendum, then. No one asked us when they called it the England team. No wonder those continentals can now attack us for having no real country. Look at the Spain, they don't go about giving the Catalans, and the Galicians, and the Basques, and the Andalusians, etc. their own teams the way we do."
UKGB1: "[sighing] Well there's Portugal, you know they're still in the PIIGS. And anyway Spain is going to win the World Cup and Zapatero is going to say that that's a Europe win against the rest of the world."
UKGB2: "Oh, CBW is back in the lobby, he's arguing with Misha, he's asking him what's the point of having ID cards if no one ever bothers checking them. I must go, as this is becoming a ***very*** interesting conversation. Bye now."
UKGB1: "Bye."
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#234. At 09:17am on 13 Jul 2010, Chris Camp,
I guess you haven't read the link Eupris posted in #212, take a look as he mentioned three sources of EU economic analysts who put the probability of an Eurozone split within five years at above 50 percent. Nobody believed that the Greek crisis alone would split the Euro, it would need at least one other country, probably two or three, to fail to fatally test the blind obedience to the great God 'the single currency'. Since once one leaves there will be a domino effect, as always.
Incidentally, whilst talking about francs, many Belgian's still talk about prices of things like houses in Belgian francs so reverting back would be not so difficult for them. They adopted the Euro, blame it for high prices and still have fond memories of the Belgium franc and the fact it was tied to the Deutschmark.
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People talk about a 'break-up' of the Euro zone. If 'analysts' (what is an analyst? Can anybody on this blog call himself an analyst?) predict that there is a 50% chance of a break-up of the Eurozone in the next five years, and one country (which may or may not have been successful in the recent World Cup) is expelled or withdraws from the Euro zone, then I guess that prophecy may be claimed by some to be correct. But if I get expelled by my cricket club does that mean that my cricket club has broken up?
Re: reverting to older currencies, there are some in the UK who still claim that decimalisation was the cause of inflation in the early 1970's. Maybe we should bring back pounds, shillings and pence. Not to mention half crowns (two shillings and six pence) , guineas (21 shillings) and threepenny bits. It would confuse the hell out of foreigners, and anybody under 50.
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lacerniagigante
Re my #47 and Your sort of response (was that what it was?) at #235
Erm, I take it You actually do NOT have any factual or substantive reply available hence the incomprehensible attempt at some sort of humour!?
I repeat: Judging from my regular experience of trips across predominantly 'west' EUrope and from last week's 2 day sortie to Tallin, Estonia I can only describe Schengen's 'open borders' as "..The Criminals' & Terrorists' FRIENDSHIP CHARTER".
It is with no sense of satisfaction that I note not one of those 'pro-Schengen' to whom I addressed my Comment at #47, and indeed You lacerniagigante in Your #235, were capable of providing any worthwhile explanation or challenge to my observations on how Schengen actually works!
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238. At 11:19am on 13 Jul 2010, cool_brush_work
-------------------------
You are so full of paranoia. Surely open borders, hassle free hotel check-in and not being asked for your papers should all be a pre requisite for judging a free society.
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227. At 06:45am on 13 Jul 2010, powermeerkat wrote:
" ...
P.S. Ever tried to be a Gypsy in Italy? ;)"
EUpris: No! Tell us how you got on!
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230. At 07:59am on 13 Jul 2010, threnodio_II wrote:
"#221 - EUprisoner209456731
Budapest ... It's a beautiful city. You should try it some time."
EUpris: I did. in 1962. I thought it had the makings of a wonderful city. I hope to go back some time. Know any good vegetarian restaurants?
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Re #199
Quote, "..I (cbw) know I over-step the mark, as most of us do.. The natural charm of cbw listing the first of his virtues... at this point I believe the medical term is 'ravishing delusion'."
DemocThreat, the domeciled Swiss sage again feeling got-at, gives a measured response and yet one detects the nervous exhaustion of the tethered calf before a feast!
So, in deference to not causing more suffering when its obvious the subject is already in deep pain, I'll just ask:
Who, whilst proclaiming their sentient moral-ethical being, wrote all the following on these Blogs about the English,
"..english-speaking peoples are the most bloodthirsty... in history.."
"..I avoid the English like the plague.."
"..UK has become like Israel.. It contains the dregs of its former society.."
".. It just makes a person want to stab them all in the eye with a fork."
".. it isn't possible everyone in the UK is a degenerate... if pressed on the matter that would be my view.."
".. you see sourself as free & noble.. an English disease, I'm afraid.. that is what I find most disgusting about people like you.. You are a crawling sycophant.."
What a feast of objective commentary: Ooooh look! The tethered calf's already nervous disposition just got a whole lot worse!
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Kit Green
Re #239
"..so full of paranoia"
Erm, think You are getting confused over the term 'paranoia': That is someone who is constantly suspicious they ARE under surveillance of some sort.
I'm writing in #47 & #238 that there is a complete LACK of surveillance of any sort under the terms of Schengen.
I am suggesting that Schengen's 'open borders' operated in the manner I have described is an 'open' invitation to criminality & terrorism.
A 'Free society' is an excellent thing: I totally endorse such a 'Democratic' perspective. It is how it is brought about that is of greatest concern to me. IMO the EU 'open border' policies as presently in-place are not the correct methods to achieve that enlightened goal.
Now, it is for You & other 'pro-Schengen' to explain how the EU guesstimate for 'Trafficked Peoples' is around 12 million, how every EU National Police reports a staggering rise in the 'Smuggling' of counterfeit goods, drugs, weapons, pornography etc. all since the introduction of Schengen, is not the fault of 'open borders' as I have previously described?
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Dead end;
"1.5 years of a black man in charge, who you hate and claim is nothing more than an unqualified token, and you conveniently ignore 233 years of white, northern european, male,middle class political elite rule."
I do not hate President Obama. In fact I like him very much. I would be only too happy if he were my next door neighbor. I just didn't think he is qualified to be President of the United States. But then I didn't see his opponents as any better, merely their inadequacies different. I don't disagree with many of President Obama's goals, merely his policies of achieving them and the methods he's going about implimenting those policies.
He's also anything but a token. Ever hear of Thurgood Marshall, Clarence Thomas, Soto Mayor, or Governor Rishardson? How about General Powell? Many minorities in the US as well as women and minority women have held and continue to hold positions of power in politics and business. You've been reading a lot of old news, the face of America is much less white than it once was and by around 2040 America will not have a white majority population. The demographics are changing, have been for quite some time. It could hardly matter less. What defines an American has nothing to do with race, ethnicity, or the cultural heritage of their ancestors. This makes it practically unique, there are very few examples that are comparable. Candada many be one of the exceptions. Perhaps this is one reason it is so hard for Europeans to even understand what America is about let alone what they are up against now that they've chosen to openly confront and "challenge" it. It's a confrontation they can't possibly win.
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MarcusAurellius and Powermeerkat
Today NPR (National Public Radio) has reported that the NAACP has requested the `Tea Party´groupings to rid itself of its Racists. President Carter has also stated that for many, the illogical criticism of Obama can only be interpreted as veiled Racism.
#226 Powermeerkat-- your apparent ignorance of Racism in America hardly qualifies you for comments on France and Germany --- Especially when your hidden down-playing of Black WWII veterans´ comments on the Racism they experienced in Europe was less than that they suffered from their fellow White GI´S.
Using identical evading tactics as Marcus implies similar prejudices or Nationalistic dishonesty ?
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@244 (coolbrushwork)
No doubt the EU is already working on a solution to the problem you have pointed out. The solution being: 'more EU'.
As we all know, there isn't a question, problem, case, challenge or anything to which the EU will not propose 'more EU'.
233. At 08:52am on 13 Jul 2010, lacerniagigante wrote:
Surely they must be stupid. But no more than the US electorate who voted in GW Bush four years after he was installed by the judges.
Bush was not installed by judges, stop peddling that tiresome left wing propaganda. The democrats tried to apply different standards to ballot counting in different counties, which was clearly illegal. Of course, the different standards in different counties would have favored the democrat candidate Al Gore, who's campaign also tried to steal the election by making a deal with the media to call Florida super early for Gore in the hope of dissuading late voters from voting at all.
And anyway, who elected Juan Carlos? Francisco Franco, that's who. Spain ought to go back to a republic which it was before Franco seized power. Yes, Netherlands ought to be a republic too, which we used to be before the elites imposed an unelected monarch that the people never wanted.
Monarchy = discrimination, but all of us already know that. Differentiating based on birth between common nationals is discrimination, after all. From which we can draw a simple conclusion, those who support monarchy, oppose equality. Just like those who support EU, tend to look unfavorably on democracy.
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189. At 3:35pm on 12 Jul 2010, WebAliceinwonderland wrote:
"""First world war is not a common knowledge thing in Russia. We forgot it entirely, like, it didn't leave a scar in the ? cognitive field to say it scientifically somehow."""
Of course. History for you started in 1917 when communists rose to power.
Why would they tell you how Russia was implicated in the war?
Or would they tell you that the late Russian counter-offensive had beaten for good the Germans and was taking off (it would lead mathematically to the same take off as Russians showed in 1943). The whole idea of Russian implication in the WWI was to attack it internally using the communists: foreign agents, using Zurich/New York bankers' funds doing propaganda in Russia for more than 20 years finally arriving in 1917 on a... German train (with full knowledge and full agreement of the British diplomacy - always playing double standards: the white armies they sent were to ensure communists prevailed: we saw that in China too).
But you know what? Serves Russians quite right for having tolerated so long being governed by Germanorussian royalties. When you are ruled by foreigners you can have no hope of having any independent policy, it will be always bound intrinsically to international affairs leading the nation into events (like the WWI) that normally it does not have any interest but only to lose.
"""Like, a mistake. Such a feeling.
In practical terms we know - the war began for us when a French huge and festive delegation arrived to St. Petersburg, asking us to join them.
There were parties and receptions and mass outdoor events, ships and flags and tsars strolling around in all directions :o)
Marseilleuse was allowed to be sang :o)"""
It goes without saying that The real interest of Russia was to let the WWI eat out all western Europe giving Russia the time to develop its internal industry and markets. Russia had already the hugest chunk of landmass on the planet, occupying petty, ressource-poor territories in western Europe was of non-interest. Whether France would be controlled by Germany it was of non-interest. On the contrary it would trap enough German troops to make them forget about expanding to the east. But most importantly Russians' greatest enemies where the British who campaigned against them in the Crimea and who always threatened them with total war (from China to even... Germany - the creation of Germany was seen by the British as means of containing Russia). With Britain out occupied with Germans, Russia could just move down to Middle East creating the biggest Empire on earth. Given the population increase (back then each Russian family had 7 to 8 children on average, something that stopped with the civil war, imposition of communism, then with the successive genocides, first of all of the Russians themselves, by Stalin, then by the death reate of the WWII) and the market tedencies (Russia was on the beginning of its industrialisation - yet already it was 3rd exporter of oil in the world, that in 1908 I mean!!!) it would be today a place of more than 500,000,000 people, richest place in the world, and it would be followed from a distance by the US or whoever else.
It pretty much explains why the British wanted to implicate them in every single major war they fought since the last 200 years, and why they funded (along with Germans...), the introduction of communisms via the foreign agents like Lenin, Trotsky etc. into Russia.
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"""Now, it is for You & other 'pro-Schengen' to explain how the EU guesstimate for 'Trafficked Peoples' is around 12 million, how every EU National Police reports a staggering rise in the 'Smuggling' of counterfeit goods, drugs, weapons, pornography etc. all since the introduction of Schengen, is not the fault of 'open borders' as I have previously described?"""
CBW, that is the aftermath of Shengen serving the interests of the globalisationist capitalists. But beware, these phenomena predate Shengen in most countries (apart the rare cases of Greece & Spain). Shengen simply simplifies the field of action for globalisationist capitalists.
As said, EU serves not the interests of people. It is not there for them. EU can really serve the interests of people but only if placed on a whole different level starting of course from the triangle of Defense, Energy, Geopolitics. The fact that EU was built in the exact inverse way reveals what intentions have those who work for it and for whose account they work.
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239.Kit Green wrote: Surely open borders, hassle free hotel check-in and not being asked for your papers should all be a pre requisite for judging a free society.
Sure, but we don't need the EU for that. We ought to stick with our national parliamentary democracies instead of abolishing them and moving legislative powers to the hands of unelected undemocratic EU commission and EU council ministers who love to bypass their national parliaments.
People like me oppose the EU because it is fundamentally and deliberately undemocratic, and no amount of 'goodies' makes up for the total lack of democracy. And no, sham-democracy doesn't count.
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244. At 12:09pm on 13 Jul 2010, cool_brush_work
----------------------------
I am suggesting that as you see criminality & terrorism as possibly lurking around every corner that there is a paranoia on your part there too.
There are other means to counter the problems you highlight which are probably the same means used to deal with these matters where state boundaries in the USA are concerned.
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#245 MarcusAurellius
What is this nonsense ?
`What defines an American has nothing to do with race, ethnicity, or the cultural heritage of their ancestors´
Please define ´defines´.
Then let´s see which prejudices, inequalities and wishful thinking remain in your definition !
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Wonthillian
Re #237
Reintroducing old currency: As no one, either 'anti' or 'pro' EU so far as I'm aware has on these Blogs suggested such a course of action I can only assume You made it as some attempt to deflect from the reality of the Economic-Fiscal problems confronting the EUro-zone, and also until now, to a lesser extent non-zone members of the EU.
The cricketing analogy was a more ingenious effort: However, isn't it more the case Your Cricket Club has an established a batting order and for argument's sake, Manuel is coming in at No.5, when it is discovered he has lost his 'box', 'pads', half a 'bat' & his 'helmet' meant to protect from the worst of a very dodgy wicket is a straw-boater!?
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#237. At 11:14am on 13 Jul 2010, Wonthillian,
The Euro did by the very nature of the conversion cause inflation, in Belgium the exchange rate from Belgian Francs was 40.3399 francs per Euro. Since all machines that accepted coins used a 20 franc coin the closest match was a 50 cents Euro coin. If you calculate the inflation of that it comes to about 2% and the Belgian government claimed at the time that 2% was the allowed inflation for the introduction of the Euro. In fact, just as in UK's decimalisation, the actual inflation was much higher as prices rose because unscrupulous traders took advantage of the newness of the currency. Measures were taken in Belgium for six months to limit that but the trading company's just waited to the end of that period and then relied on the consumer not converting Euro's back to Belgian francs to see the old cost.
As for reverting back to pounds, shillings and pence, no thanks, for an IT person it was nightmare, so even though it did cost us a lot of money and inflation it was money well spent. As for the Euro, when the Eurozone reverts to a zone of similar economies then it has a future, until then it is a split waiting to happen.
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dumb as a stump;
I am well aware of the history of racism in the United States, obviously I cannot speak for others. Unlike Europeans who frequently remain ignorant of the truth of theirs, I am cognizant of the darker sides of the history of my country. The past cannot be changed but it can be learned from. It must also be put in a larger context in that attitudes evolve just as society and civilization evolves. The difference is that Europe does not recognize its past and cannot learn from it. It refuses to acknowledge it and when it is irrefutably pointed out as not only being its past but its present, its response invariably is to point to America's past or to find fault with America's present not having reached its goals and ideals yet. There are no signs that Europe is serious about fixing what is wrong with it even as time is rapidly running out.
I am not a tea party member. Like all thinking Americans I deplore, disavow, and detest racism including that shown to President Obama. On the other hand, there are many legitimate criticisms of his policies and those who blindly support him seem to often have a tendency to describe all criticism of him as racially motivated when there is simply no truth to it. In fact much of the criticism of the liberal and Democratic party's views have nothing to do with Obama. It was Senator Reid who kept the health care reform bill secret in his office for months and then only revealed it at the last minute before the vote when it couldn't be thoroughly analyzed and debated. This is exactly the opposite of what Barack Obama promised his administration would do when he was campaigning. He's also been an indecisive commander-in-chief of the armed forces. But he's hardly America's first weak president.
There is much racism on the other end of America's political spectrum including a black lunatic fringe that hates anything and anyone white. I wish President Obama would equally disavow and distance himself from that segment of the American body politic including his longtime friend and associate Reverent White. Lately conservative media talk show hosts and pundits in America have spent some time pointing that out as well as the Attorney General Holder's refusal to prosecute black extremists who illegally intimidated voters at polling boths with coshes.
At the moment, the primary concern in America has nothing to do with black or white race it has to do with black and red ink. Most Americans are not happy with the state of the US economy. The architects of both the financial disaster and of what seems to be an indequate recovery just happen to all be white; Greenspan, Paulson, Bernanke, Geitner, Franks, Dodd, Clinton, both President Bushes and there are plenty of others. President Obama and his associates have until the first Tuesday in November to change America's perception of what the economy is and where it is going and not what Tim Geitner says it. If he doesn't, President Obama will have a far less amicable Congress to deal with in the second half of his term in office. Trying to deflect the debate by playing the race card will not work. Americans vote their pocketbooks which right now seem rather empty for too many of them.
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Re #249
Gratifying to see in amongst all Your 'far-left' posts You eventually get one near-enough spot-on.
'Big-Business/Big-Government' is the sole purpose of the 'political construct' called the EUropean Union.
'Schengen' is a product of that demand from 'big-Business' for the keys to the Continent's economies: At whatever cost to the ordinary Citizens and it is such an easy argument for 'business/government' to make and we read it here all the time.
Open Borders equals Free Movement, no queues etc. so their argument goes:
Well, if that is the case why would any EU Citizen still need a Passport?
Alternative meaning of Open Borders for 'big-Business' equals Unrestricted/Unchecked Movement of illegal Immigrants, illegal Goods, illegal Drugs, illegal Weapons, plus exploitation of cheap Labour Forces, the exploitation of vulnerable Women & Children, and for 'big-Government' at Brussels the ongoing excuse to announce ever encroaching supra-National Laws to 'combat' all the illegality!
Abandon Schengen the 'illegality'/'criminality' won't just disappear, however, it will be 'Checked' and it will be 'Restricted' by the Border Controls that Continental EUrope and the British Isles will put in place.
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Nick, I think it is easy to see that a nation that is so preoccupied with itself that it cannot remember its participation and defeat in World War I would have overlooked the location of the nation of Japan about 15 years earlier. Russia is so big and by comparison Japan so small. It's easy to lose track of small things. Of course when it comes to military power size isn't everything, there are other factors which can be far more important to the outcome of a war.
BTW, for the USSR history started in 1917 but for Russians it started nearly a thousand years earlier.
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MA II "Russia is so big and by comparison Japan so small."
Is that why 'new improved democratic Russia' is still formally in the state of war with Japan? ( 65 years after the end of WWII)
Or simply because KGB gen. Vladimir Putin would rather die than return to Japan Russia-occupied Kuril Islands and Sakhalin?
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253 CBW
'The cricketing analogy was a more ingenious effort: However, isn't it more the case Your Cricket Club has an established a batting order and for argument's sake, Manuel is coming in at No.5, when it is discovered he has lost his 'box', 'pads', half a 'bat' & his 'helmet' meant to protect from the worst of a very dodgy wicket is a straw-boater!?'
Ok, so in the worst case Manuel is dropped, or resigns, from the team, possibly to be replaced by, say, Audronius from Lithuania. But this doesn't mean the whole team has broken up, even though that's what some people would like. Not every body is suitable for the team. Not everybody wants to play for the team (especially John Bull) - but I suspect the team will still be around in five, ten years time.
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To cool_brush_work (256):
Border controls don't restrict anything if you don't know what to look for. Border controls don't restrict illegal drug and human trafficking to U.S. nor to Europe, nor did they prevent 9/11. The only way to tackle issues like these, criminals and terrorists, is old fashioned police, security and intelligence work coupled with efficient information exchange between authorities.
Inside the EU/Schengen treaty area, internal border controls are more or less useless because of the increases exchange of information between authorities and larger co-ordination of policing, intelligence gathering and security activities allow authorities to have required tools to handle criminal elements and security threats. Also internal border controls would slow down interstate commerce and freedom of movement, things that are important and a definitive benefit for European citizens.
I would also like to note that both the EU and the Schengen area are both fairly young constructs. In time by gathering experience and understanding better what is needed, we will get better systems and agencies to take care of the matters of internal security. In 30-50 years time frame we in the European Union will have more or less same kind of systems and agencies running as the US does. Notifiable things are the SIS, enlargement of powers of the Europol (our future FBI) and introduction of EU level crimes (Federal Crimes).
More information...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_information_system
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europol
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_of_freedom,_security_and_justice
Plus I would add that in case of terrorists and any other serious threats to national security we have intelligence and security services that more or less operate beyond the law anyway. For example the Swedish Signal Intelligence Agency has for long surveyed all Internet and telecommunication traffic that goes throe Sweden, much much before the introduction of the law enabling to do what it had been doing for years. So in sense too, internal border controls are useless.
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MA II " for the USSR history started in 1917 but for Russians it started nearly a thousand years earlier."
With them Vikings (Varangians) founding Kievan Rus.
BTW. For the Soviets history ended 20 years ago.
Although quite a few 'fellow travellers' here seem not to have noticed :)
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Kit Green
Re #251
However, as nowhere do I suggest criminality & terrorism is 'lurking around every corner' it would seem 'paranoia' is not a fair assumption of my motive for pointing out the inadequacies of Schengen.
I'm afraid 9,000 internal EU International Entry Points plus hundreds of thousands of external EU Entry Points is a frailty of the 'open borders' system for which no one in favour of it has yet been able to account! Essentially the EU external borders face 3 Seas (Atlantic, Mediterranean, Black Sea) and upward of 12 National borders all of which act as conduits for Asia, Africa & the Middle East: The idea of Schengen was 'strict' enforcement of those external borders. Yet the reality of the last decade within the EU has been a burgeoning underclass of unregistered immigrants, an expedential rise in the worst sorts of exploitation of vulnerable peoples, and a spectacular rise in criminality of every description.
Yes, I'm quite sure there are means to counteract criminality, terrorism etc. that crosses borders: However, the USA is patently not Continental EU and or British Isles and the Federal Bureau of Investigation whilst a worthy institution persuing felons over State lines is not my preference for the Policing of crime etc. this side of the Atlantic. That sort of Policing requires a one-Nation/one-size-fits-all Rule of Law which I'm bound to say may be Your view of a future, but is certainly not mine.
Quite apart from the blindingly obvious failure 'down Mexico way' of the USA Border Controls and they are a great deal tighter than those regularly deployed by Schengen's external border Nation members.
You suggest I'm a victim of paranoia and I suggest You and the 'pro-Schengen/EU' in general are victims of 'wishful-thinking': You all wish Schengen worked so You wouldn't be faced with the ever-increasing statistical evidence that the perpetuation of Schengen was/remains top of Illegal Immigrant-Criminal-Terrorist wish-lists.
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Powermeerkat;
"Or simply because KGB gen. Vladimir Putin would rather die than return to Japan Russia-occupied Kuril Islands and Sakhalin?"
Isn't it wonderful? For a handful of crumby little islands, Russia has cut itself off from the second most technologically advanced nation (well maybe Israel is tied with it) in the world for 65 years. The cold war cut it off from the first most advanced for 45 years. And then they used it as a pretext to shoot down KAL flight 007. You could hardly get much stupider. And people wonder why Russia is such a backwared country, even by comparison to Western Europe.
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Every country has many Marcus the A. Read any editorial page of a paper, go to news sites with pressing questions and you find him under another name. Super-nationalist who view their own countries as better than any place else and superior in culture as well. The feel higher by placing everyone else lower. Common theme on most web sites. Why you react to his postings, usually offensive postings, is beyond me. Ranters like to rant, just accept him for who he is, you are certainly not going to change him. Most posters would like a dicussion and he wants an argument...that goes nowhere.
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256 cool_brush_work wrote:
"..why would any EU Citizen still need a Passport?"
To travel to England?
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in 255 Homer complains that anyone daring to criticise President Obama will be accused of racism. He then goes on "the architects of the financial disaster all happen to be white ...Greenspan, Paulson, Bernanke, Geitner, Franks..etc."
I'm sure if anyone suggested to him that most of them also happen to be jewish he would be the first to shout 'anti-semitism'.
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Mentioning the obvious: that Arabs are disriminated against in France, Turks in Germany, Albanians and Gypsies in Italy, Catalans and Basques in Spain, etc., seems to be in violation of not only of EUSSR Rules. :)
P.S. Seems quite a few of neo-Nazis in Austria still, as well.
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Wonthillian
Re #261
I think its a fair asumption not everyone & especially John Bull, want to play for that particular team as things stand in the Club House: Opinions differ, but when a non-playing Club Captain Bruxelles gets to call the tactics though he patently has no experience it is not surprising some prefer to walk before they are called!
However, I suspect the biggest differences lay in selection policy which is run almost exclusively by an elite 2 - - the adroit but wholly unreliable opener, Francois & of course everyone knows patient, imperturbable Fritz is the real power as he bats No.2 & has been known to shine the ball on Francois' behalf so his bowling always looks way better than it really is. Together with middle-order utility-player Bruxelles they demand a lot of close slip-fielding & everyone taking a turn at wicket-keeper: This may help Team spirit, but its patently obvious the gloves don't suit some and yet they will insist everyone wears the same ones!
Naturally, this irritates the hell out of John Bull who knows his strength is a game played in the covers & coming in to bat when he's ready, moving up & down the order according to circumstance.
Francois-Bruxelles-Fritz all loathe his independent spirit & reckon he weakens the Team by his individuality although secretly they acknowledge the whole Club would really miss his immense contribution.
Okay, that was my Second Innings: You get the follow-on and with no sign of rain You have it all to play for!
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" Federal Bureau of Investigation whilst a worthy institution persuing felons over State lines is not my preference for the Policing of crime etc. this side of the Atlantic."
In vie of most recent expulsions it seems FBI has been quite succesful in pursuing felons even across trans-Atlantic lines. :)
[poor Anya! ;(]
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256 cool_brush_work wrote:
"..why would any EU Citizen still need a Passport?"
To travel to England?
Well, in case she wears a hijab and burqa.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
With them Vikings (Varangians) founding Kievan Rus.
That's a short bit, ab 100 yrs, from that "Varangian" ha ha Rurik - and hop - to Christianity. yr 860 - yr 980/1000 approx.
The next 400 yrs (till now :o) all things Christian tried to defeat all things pagan in Rus Russia whatever.
All because before dear Rurik we have been already very set in ways and habits :o), culture and traditions, and all things Russian how to say.
There are pre-Rurik songs and fairy-tales - still around! :o)))))))))))
Anyway dear Rurik wasn't so much an awful foreigner Varangian or Varyag or whatever, but more likely was German to put it plain :o))))))))
- I mean from modern Germany - forgot how the places are called for the life of me, but there are quite a lot of geographic locations in modern Germany (some lakes? towns? whatever that sound absolutely Russian.
I mean, have a meaning to the word. (for us)
So I'd think Rurik was someplace from Meklenburg or something. Maybe Sorbian.
Nevermind.
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Margaret Howard
Re #267
Precisely Margaret!
Now, more to the point, have You any words to enlighten us on the wonders of Schengen or do all my criticisms stand wholly unchallenged!?
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Powermerkat
R #271
Yes, credit to the FBI.
Alas the fair but traiterous lady lost her UK Citizenship & Passport today.
Doubtless, thanks to Schengen, within a 12 month she & all her under-cover comrades will be back scrutinising EUropean Politicians' fascinating plans for an EDF etc.
Of course, also due to Schengen, only a monumental piece of luck for the Security authorities could lead to her or any others being caught this side of the Atlantic!
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We are inclined to think Rurik was a main-lander - not an isleander.
Because he inspired no antagonistic feelings but was kind of viewed as normal local.
While with Varangians "Varyags" the islanders - the feeling towards them was always kind of slightly tense :o))))))))))
You say it wrong - "Varangians". We know better.
a "Varyag" (1) - several "Varyags". The ones arriving by ships. To describe them shortly.
And the old trade route - from up to down - "from Varyags to Greeks".
(the road is still here :o)
PS
there is a side word formed from Varangians - Varyags - in Russian.
Guess which. "Varyag - Vorog - Vrag" (enemy)
Whoever eh, visits (un-peacefully) these days - is plain called "Vorog".
"Vrag", if you skip one vowel. Both options in modern circulation.
Meanwhile dear powermeer, Poland is still around as Polonia I think.
A place where people get when you get them into "Polon" captivity.
We think it was a kind of local campus for all un-lucky fellows grabatised by Varyags in the Baltics. Where the Varangians un-loaded their catch.
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Jukka_Rohilla
Re #262
When You wrote, ".. through old fashioned.." I fleetingly thought there's hope for the man yet!
Then You went & spoilt it all writing about all the fashionable stuff that in the last decade has failed to prevent the massive increases in criminality, trafficking, illegal immigration etc.
Of course the Law Enforcement & Security Service must move with the times: E.g. Internet Porn, Internet Money Laundering etc. can only be deterred by Investigative Authorities with Personnel whose expertise is in those areas - - no argument from me - - however, the idea that Kilos of Heroin, enslaved women/children & worse are not regularly entering the EU everyday due to lax Border Controls is to my mind ludicrous.
ONLY the old fashioned Police Work plus strict Border checks will at least reduce the in-flow: A good start & something to put the odds a little in favour of the 'police' would be the abandonment of Schengen.
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@ 277 Alice-- Very interesting. So Poland means Polonia means (originally) "Prison land"?
Judging by the numbers of people trying to escape it (including those leaving for Britain), it definitely justifies its appellation.
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Regarding the much vaunted Schengen, well at least by some, there was a news item on today's Belgian tv about how there will be a new force found on Belgian roads to control vehicles. From now on the Douane (customs & excise) will be stopping cars and verifying whether you are taxed, insured and are using red diesel, plus anything else they can think of. Tru you can enter without problem but after that you (and us) are just a tax raising exercise. Welcome to Schengen and make sure you have plenty of cash on you to pay the fines straight away, oh the pleasure of using the Euro as it makes contributing to the exchequer of another state so much easier.
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276. At 6:50pm on 13 Jul 2010, cool_brush_work wrote:
Powermerkat
R #271
Yes, credit to the FBI.
Alas the fair but traiterous lady lost her UK Citizenship & Passport today.
Doubtless, thanks to Schengen, within a 12 month she & all her under-cover comrades will be back scrutinising EUropean Politicians' fascinating plans for an EDF etc.
Of course, also due to Schengen, only a monumental piece of luck for the Security authorities could lead to her or any others being caught this side of the Atlantic!
++++++++++
Credit for what exactly? The FBI are mad with her because she saw through their scam (or call it "sting" if you like) and went to the nearest police station with the passport their agent asked her to deliver.
They couldn't forgive her for that, could they, so came up with their spy allegations.
Now if I ever lay my hands an a little FBI rat like the one allegedly involved... ough... god forbid.
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To cool_brush_work (278):
Have you ever thought that maybe what has been done in the last decade hasn't actually failed, but that the times have just changed?
Lets put some argumentation behind this...
It isn't just the EU/Schengen area that has gotten more illegal immigrants, more human and drug trafficking, the same has also happened in the US. However in the US border controls haven't been relaxed, on the contrary they have increased external border controls even more and still face in increasing count the same problems that we European are facing. So is it really about border controls, or has something else changed?
I would argue that the increase of illegal immigrants and illegal substances coming to both the USA and Europe is the result of what has been happening in those places that these people and substances become.
A) In both Latin America, Africa and in Middle-East we have had huge population explosions
B) Particularly in Africa and Middle-East per capita incomes have gone down, and in those places where it has stayed the same, increase of gap between rich and poor has created many more with nothing to loose.
C) Collapse of the USSR removed control and then deteriorating conditions in these countries started to drive more and more people to more and more desperate to get out.
D) Creation of collapsed states in Balkans created a vacuum where criminals could operate. The same is true partly also in Mexico and more or less in the Middle-America.
E) Rise of wages in developed countries combined with increased competition drives companies, entrepreneurs, farmers and individuals to hire illegal immigrants.
I would say that these are more or less bigger reasons on why we have more and more people wanting to come here and the USA.
The thing to note about this all is that we have people and substances coming to both USA and the EU. External border controls tackle some of this problem field, thus reducing supply, but the only real solution lies in restricting and reducing demand. Lets face it, illegal immigrants, drugs and people trafficked, they all have a destination address where they are going to, that is where the real fight is.
In that fight the right tools are increase of control and tracking, for example mandating that all transactions between companies and companies and individuals must be bank transactions. More drastic measure could be banning cash and moving all transactions to be electric, thus completely removing any ability to hide money transactions thus reducing demand for illegal substances and services.
And by the way, were is the suitable line where to have border controls? If you think that having border controls between nations helps the police, just think on how much border controls between regions would help, or between cities, or inside different parts of city... For example we in the Helsinki city get too many immigrants from the regions that are much poorer and prone to be more violent and disposed to do crimes... It would really help police to have controls in city gates wouldn't it? ... Then again, that would be a police state, not a free state. The same is true in European context, European Union with internal borders is closer to an police state than a free state. I don't know about you, but I myself prefer free state rather than a police state.
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cbw writes:
"You suggest I'm a victim of paranoia and I suggest You and the 'pro-Schengen/EU' in general are victims of 'wishful-thinking': You all wish Schengen worked so You wouldn't be faced with the ever-increasing statistical evidence that the perpetuation of Schengen was/remains top of Illegal Immigrant-Criminal-Terrorist wish-lists."
Paranoia? This is shrieking hysteria of the most timid and fanciful nature. If CBW had his way, two thirds of the population would be employed in uniforms to ensure that the the remaining third marched properly to work in the factories of the state.
He might not know it, for fanatics rarely understand the outcomes associated with their visions, but his inability react reasonably to the threat of "terrorism" forces him into a ridiculous economic argument.
Now cbw might see his argument as morally or politically worthy, and who knows it might be, but at the same time it is economical suicide.
A good law must be practical, not merely attractive to the quality. If the implementation of laws harms the economic potential of a society profoundly, advocates of such laws are properly considered vandals of culture, for no culture can survive sustained economic depredation.
And given that every moral and theoretical argument for a law inevitably boils down to an argument to conserve worthy aspects of a culture larger and better than the individual, it follows that the economic outcome of policy is fundamental to whether it ought to become law.
If you listen to people like CBW, you end up miserable, destitute, god forsaken, stupefied, and so on and so forth.
So DON'T DO IT. Just say "no."
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283 above
Couldn't agree with you more.
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283.democracythreat wrote: cbw writes:
If the implementation of laws harms the economic potential of a society profoundly, advocates of such laws are properly considered vandals of culture, for no culture can survive sustained economic depredation.
The EU has certainly harmed the economic potential of quite a few countries, and therefore ought to be considered vandals of culture? I certainly agree with that. Plus, the EU-philes zealous commitment to stamp out diversity and create the ultimate 1984 state where there is no longer anything differentiating the countries.
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#282. At 8:09pm on 13 Jul 2010, Jukka Rohila,
"In that fight the right tools are increase of control and tracking, for example mandating that all transactions between companies and companies and individuals must be bank transactions. More drastic measure could be banning cash and moving all transactions to be electric, thus completely removing any ability to hide money transactions thus reducing demand for illegal substances and services."
This would be the police state that you later on say that you don't want, imagine how it could be used by an unscrupulous politically motivated EU. E.G. at a checkout, Ah Ah sir, you are not a fully paid up member of the xyz party, I'm afraid you can only have half a food ration. If you want the full ration you will need to attend re-education classes and serve the party to gain privileged serf status.
In a cashless society this would be more than possible and you would be unable to buy something the elite did not want you to, would you seriously risk putting that sort of power into the hands of the egotistical megalomaniacs that run the EU?
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To Buzet23 (286):
Except that technology doesn't enable police state, people do.
In case of cashless society, I have no problems nor fears on moving into it. We live in a democratic society, in a democratic Europe, we the people get what we want and as long we stay vigilant, there will be no problems.
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#287. At 9:25pm on 13 Jul 2010, Jukka Rohila,
You're almost there Jukka, it is indeed the technology that makes it possible but don't forget power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, plus, and I think we spoken about this many times before, there is only token democracy in the EU. Many of the EU elite are unelected and get to the top by patronage, the current EU president Van Rompuy is a case in point as whilst he was elected in Belgium that was only for a Belgian National election. I'm afraid that 'we the people do not get what we want', with the exception of the EU parliament we get what unelected politicians want us to have for their own egos. I think therefore that your claim that we live in a democratic society, in a democratic Europe, is badly misplaced as few of Europe's politicians can be trusted with anything.
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#255 MarcusAurellius
If you had lived longer in at a least second society for you to compare, your---
´It must also be put in a larger context in that attitudes evolve just as societies and civilizations evolves. ´
would not have been seen as an excuse for such massive American Racism --since Independence and despite Bills of Rights.
Countries and societies do evolve, but not always in the positive direction you falsly claim for America and its societies (States ?). Some societies partially change for the better, some partially for the worst and others almost totally in either direction.
You have made it amply clear with your contributions of Obama´s inadequacies as President, however his eloquent appeal to ALL Americans to rid the US of Racism has fallen on your deaf ears ?
You are unfortunately not alone. Listen to some in Congress and Senate and the ask if the attitudes are evolving in the ´positive´ direction you excuse.
I fear you may answer -- YES !
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#269 Powermeerkat
That is still NO excuse for American Racism --- or do you AGAIN disagree ?
Stop acting like a tit-for-tat child claiming American Racism is inferior -- or do you mean SUPERIOR ???
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238. At 11:19am on 13 Jul 2010, cool_brush_work wrote:
"It is with no sense of satisfaction that I note not one of those 'pro-Schengen' to whom I addressed my Comment at #47, and indeed You lacerniagigante in Your #235, were capable of providing any worthwhile explanation or challenge to my observations on how Schengen actually works!"
If you're looking for answers, maybe you should start by formulating a question. What is exactly that you don't understand about Schengen?
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247. At 12:35pm on 13 Jul 2010, mvr512 wrote:
"And anyway, who elected Juan Carlos? Francisco Franco, that's who. Spain ought to go back to a republic which it was before Franco seized power. Yes, Netherlands ought to be a republic too, which we used to be before the elites imposed an unelected monarch that the people never wanted."
I agree, and many Spanish and Dutch will long for their lost republics. I know of many Swedish and Norwegian republicans as well.
Maybe one day these countries will get rid of their monarchs and become full democracies?
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#283 DT
I interpret CBW´s many contributions as being from a British individual with great pride in the Commonwealth, his military service to the Crown and who knows his (and others) place in the British society.
He sees the EU (correctly) as a threat to this social order as do many other Brits with similar ideals.
Unless he himself can question his own society --especially its structure and history, your attempts to widen his horizon will remain fruitless.
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247. At 12:35pm on 13 Jul 2010, mvr512 wrote:
"Bush was not installed by judges, stop peddling that tiresome left wing propaganda."
Surely the law school at Cornell must be working as a cover for a communist cell and they made it all up:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/00-949.ZPC.html
It is common knowledge that the Florida hand recount was stopped by the Supreme Court and hence considered the less than 1/10,000 margin as a victory for the Republican side there.
No left-wing whatsoever. And who is supposed to be left-wing? Al Gore? Very funny.
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#292 lacerniagigante
That is why her Majesties British Government wishes to prevent more powers going to Brussels.
-- The privileges and power of the Monarch and the elite are at stake !
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#241 - EUprisoner209456731
"Know any good vegetarian restaurants?"
It's getting better all the time.
There are plenty of veggie menus around but they do tend to look sideways at anyone who does not eat great lumps of meat.
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#295 - quietoaktree
Oh dear - and you were doing so well!
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Sung Hui v Tsai,
Yes - in Russian it has always been. But how they sound themselves to themselves, I mean what they mean themselves to themselves - I don't know.
For that matter, may be they know what "Rus" is :o) - because we don't :o))))))
For us it's just hair colour ordinary. "Rusy" colour. Not blond not black at all, and not dark either. Ordinary.
And "polon" is a very old word, you'd find it archaic marked in dictionaries. Modern spelling is "plen" - a vowel has been swallowed. We say "polon", like, it's high-flown, poetic kind of. Prizon :o)))))))))
"Polon" is not a prizon with walls. It's a sad state of captivity, being driven away to hell knows where, grabatised unfairly. So Polonia does sound kind of sad in Russian; against the will, being driven away - into Polonia! save God :o))))))))))))))
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PS May be all those Poles - read captives :o) - just try to return back to their ex respective places :o) Runs in the blood! Genetic memoirs that that's not exactly proper place to be.
They have always been travelling, it is a Polish feature, they are good travellers.
I think want to get home.
Don't know where it is anymore :o(
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265. At 4:48pm on 13 Jul 2010, MarcusAureliusII wrote:
"""Powermeerkat;
"Or simply because KGB gen. Vladimir Putin would rather die than return to Japan Russia-occupied Kuril Islands and Sakhalin?"
Isn't it wonderful? For a handful of crumby little islands, Russia has cut itself off from the second most technologically advanced nation (well maybe Israel is tied with it) in the world for 65 years."""
If they are crumby little islands then they should rest with Russia, you seem not to be willing to ask why on earth Japan wants these islands while historically they were ever any particular part of Imperial Japan, these were sparsely populated islands that fishermen visited once in a while. The local population where the Ainus who were not related to Japanese (they were surprisingly a quite European-like white population of mysterious origins, these were the original habitants of Japan too prior to the influx of Japanese from the Korean peninsula in the ancient times). Japanese, if anything, treated Ainus as subhumans (and frankly, still do so). Japanese had scarcely colonised the southern part of the island but at the same time Russians were also doing so in the north part of the island. Japanese declared unilaterally a sovereignty only in the 1850s but there was no legal case of it and even them never sought to apply it effectively being not interested in a bunch of Ainous living in an cold remote northern island and finally they give the whole island to Russians in order to take some of the Kouriles islands nearer to Hokkaido.
There is no case for the Japanese in Sakhalin and even in Kouriles their case is weaker than weak. But of course : anything that is against Russia is ok for you. Give back to Mexico Texas & California & Florida and then Russians may give Sakhalin to the Australians if you like, why not?
"""...And people wonder why Russia is such a backwared country, even by comparison to Western Europe."""
I am sorry but the same backwater I find in Russia I can find it in the US too, a country where the 30% of the population (and I talk about the citizens here, not the rest) lives in 3rd world conditions. We all admired your country's level during pas events like the earthquakes in LA and the Katrina disaster in New Orleans.
As for Russian technological hysterisis you claim, it actually sounds funny that US pleaded Russians for technology and Russia pleaded Americans only for money so that both came together to work and put up the ISS.... cos frankly... the US was simply NOT up to the task. I do not need to remind you how backwards technologically NASA had been in the issue of space stations and what Russian scientists thought of that collaboration and I do not need to remember what is the official language up there which ALL your astronauts are enforced to learn (and good thing to learn a foreign language too...).
I do not expect you to be more objective but at least try showing a bit more humility.
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#295
"The privileges and power of the Monarch and the elite are at stake !"
(Sigh) What privileges and what power would be lost by the Monarch by the British handing over more power to Brussels? The only thing that is "fruitless" round here, is my expectation of a coherent reply. If you have the answer, please enlighten us, if you dont please stop posting this crap.
You threw around accusations of land tax evasion, yet when pressed on the matter several times you refused to respond, and still haven't. As usual, you throw around one-line accusations, then disappear into the ether. A few weeks later, you repeat the same accusation. I note with interest that not one person has EVER agreed with anything you have EVER said on ANY subject relating to British domestic matters. You might want to ponder that.
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CBW 270
Oh yes, there'll be some dark mutterings in the dressing room about team tactics (whether to bowl fast or spin) and whether some of the stronger characters in the team have too much say. You will get that in any team. The main point is, if you're going out to play against the West Indies or the Aussies do you want to go out as a team, or as 11 (or even 27) individuals ?
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With all the problems around,are you aware that The Generalitat of Catalonia are not issueing Cedulas (Certificate of Habitation) on all properties built on rustic land despite there age. By law you need a Cedula to sell, rent, to have electric/gas connected, and so without one your property becomes worthless. Banks will not give mortgages without a Cedula and any properties that have repossessed can not be sold, even Notaires are laying people off. This act came into effect in November 2009 and since then there hasn't been a Cedula issued to a Rustic Property.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
ThrenodioII
Re #297
TeeHeeee...
PS: He won't get it.
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Re:
#283
&
#293
A sense of quiet satisfaction & all over well-being takes possession of me as I realise DemocThreat & QOT find my contributions unsuitable.
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1.) Lenin was not a German spy. There is no evidence to suggest that he was sent to Russia by the German government.
2.) The Russian revolution happened because the decadent Russian elite had oppressed and stolen from the Russian population for centuries.
3.) People who make history do not have the privilege of hindsight. That the Soviet Union would become even more disgusting, aggressive and murderous than the Russian empire is something that people at the time were not able to anticipate. The revolution was carried out by the bolsheviks and supported by large parts of the Russian population because people were simply sick and tired of the vile Russian empire.
Back to my question - what about the EU's imminent demise? One of the posters here said that it now takes more than Greece to break the EU. Now, as they would have it, it takes "at least" one more crisis. In twenty years time, when the EU is still intact, the EU-haters on here will still go on about the imminent end of the EU. I am not the EU's biggest fan but my expectation is that the EU is going exist when all the EU-haters of our day have long since passed away.
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lacerniagigante
Re #291
I'll take that as a 'no' then, You really cannot come up with a defence of a supra-National 'open borders' policy that has coincided with an expedential rise in cross-border crime rate & illegal immigration?
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"296. At 00:57am on 14 Jul 2010, threnodio_II wrote:
#241 - EUprisoner209456731
"Know any good vegetarian restaurants?"
It's getting better all the time.
There are plenty of veggie menus around but they do tend to look sideways at anyone who does not eat great lumps of meat."
Ahh.....I loved Budapest ^^
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Jukka_Rohilla
Re #282
Re 'Schengen' etc.
Many good points by You.
Your opening remark is apt and undeniable, "times have just changed".
I'm composing a longer response but have to go out now, so, it'll get posted later.
Cheers.
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#306 CBW
NOT unsuitable, always PREDICTABLE !
( As explained)
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282. At 8:09pm on 13 Jul 2010, Jukka Rohila wrote:
"""It isn't just the EU/Schengen area that has gotten more illegal immigrants, more human and drug trafficking, the same has also happened in the US."""
Correct. I add also that many European countries like France, Belgium or even Sweden had this problem even before Shengen. However Shengen by taking off borders naturally made it worse.
"""However in the US border controls haven't been relaxed, on the contrary they have increased external border controls even more and still face in increasing count the same problems that we European are facing. So is it really about border controls, or has something else changed?"""
There is nothing easier to protect a country's borders from illegal immigration:
1) You jail citizens and close their businesses if they employ illegal immigrants
2) You put heavy fines (=several months of their salary) to people hosting or renting accomodations to illegal immigrants
3) You put heavy fines to people aiding the transfer of illegal immigrants in the country and within the country.
4) You refuse to provide any medical aid to avoid having people trying to cut their legs to remain - you rather send them to any other country that pretends to be more humanist than you.
5) You order patrols to arrest every single illigal immigrant that passes and award guards for every single illegal immigrant arrested the 1/2nd of the (anyway disproportionate) cost of suffering the entry of an illegal immigrant. You treat any breach of the borders as an act of aggression ad permit guards to act accordingly. That is why borders exist afterall!
5) You force the bordering country to receive the illegal immigrants back.
The above measures not only they cost ABSOLUTELY nothing but actually might bring for some some money too!!! ... for some time since withint a month there will be not a single soul trying to enter the country.
"""I would argue that the increase of illegal immigrants and illegal substances coming to both the USA and Europe is the result of what has been happening in those places that these people and substances become."""
Absolutely wrong. The phenomenon is singlehandedly attributed to the will of the ruling banko-investor class in US and Europe to have the illegal slave force arrive there on their own means. Not only a part of it will be the slaveforce but the whole will be used for the better control of the local societies.
"""A) In both Latin America, Africa and in Middle-East we have had huge population explosions"""
Not a problem. You let them short it out themselves. Other countries have nothing to do with it.
"""B) Particularly in Africa and Middle-East per capita incomes have gone down, and in those places where it has stayed the same, increase of gap between rich and poor has created many more with nothing to loose."""
Absolutely wrong. In the vast majority of Africa and Middle East the per capita incomes have gone up, often several times. The gap between poor and rich is thanx to the US-European and recently Chinese way of doing commerce, i.e. via the local oligarchies who are immensely rich by giving it all to the foreigners and letting their people remain poor.
"""C) Collapse of the USSR removed control and then deteriorating conditions in these countries started to drive more and more people to more and more desperate to get out."""
Yes but their immigration is not exactly massive apart certain cases like the Polish towards England which is a momentary event. Eastern Europe is not particularly populated to cause any issue, let alone being of the same basic culture, thus 100% integrateable.
"""D) Creation of collapsed states in Balkans created a vacuum where criminals could operate."""
If you have any problem with criminals, all you have to do is to increase controls and arrest them. Makes sense isn't it? If criminals are playing in their countries, that is not your business.
"""E) Rise of wages in developed countries combined with increased competition drives companies, entrepreneurs, farmers and individuals to hire illegal immigrants."""
If illegal immigrants did not exist, they would have simply to raise their prices or vanish. No state would let them vanish, thus they would protect their markets - the most logical thing to do. Hence we go back to the root of the problem which is the bankoinvesting ruling class. You have to be blind not to get the pattern.
"""I would say that these are more or less bigger reasons on why we have more and more people wanting to come here and the USA."""
People are virtually brought. There are whole networks controlled by agents and such. It is a whole organised business as much as the slavetrade-agricultural production-commercialisation triangle (ever heard of it...?).
"""The thing to note about this all is that we have people and substances coming to both USA and the EU. External border controls tackle some of this problem field, thus reducing supply, but the only real solution lies in restricting and reducing demand."""
Restricting. Abolishing it. Protect the markets, protect the citizens. Now! not now.
"""Lets face it, illegal immigrants, drugs and people trafficked, they all have a destination address where they are going to, that is where the real fight is."""
Not only a destination address but also people working for them to arrive there.
"""In that fight the right tools are increase of control and tracking, for example mandating that all transactions between companies and companies and individuals must be bank transactions."""
That won't change anything. People can barter exchange and they can do it even in large deals.
"""More drastic measure could be banning cash and moving all transactions to be electric, thus completely removing any ability to hide money transactions thus reducing demand for illegal substances and services."""
Gold will do the job just fine. Other previous metals or other merchantise. There are 1000s of ways to trade. This measure won't change anything.
"""And by the way, were is the suitable line where to have border controls?"""
At the borders I guess. An electric wire just does the job. Does not need to kill people but a large charge will remind them that they cannot pass from thre one. Private property. Can I enter your house just like that? Aren't you entitled to even kill me in self defense if I try to break by force? Well an electric charge will just do the job.
"""If you think that having border controls between nations helps the police, just think on how much border controls between regions would help, or between cities, or inside different parts of city..."""
Try enterring in George's Soros house if you like. I'll see you in hospital (at best case).
Well if he can do it to his house, I want to have it for my country too. What is so difficult to
"""For example we in the Helsinki city get too many immigrants from the regions that are much poorer and prone to be more violent and disposed to do crimes... It would really help police to have controls in city gates wouldn't it? ..."""
Guess who won't have any problem with such an evolution. No please, feel free to guess. You realise why it is necessary to do something about it?
"""Then again, that would be a police state, not a free state."""
Fascist etc. It is the true fascists that push for more illegal immigration. They get their job done cheaper, they increase their grip over the local societies as well as the societies of the immigrants while they suffer nothing and they pay nothing. A police state won't change the slightest for them, they are already living under wired houses and go only in specific public places and under protection of private armies. It won't change anything for them, in fact it will only be a benefit for them.
"""The same is true in European context, European Union with internal borders is closer to an police state than a free state. I don't know about you, but I myself prefer free state rather than a police state."""
Me too. To have a free state it must be a protected state at borders. Lets do something about it.
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# 301
You did not read my link to the `Oath of Allegiance ´required by all British MPs.
Therefore you did NOT read the European Courts decision ( wishy washy) why an elected member must take the Oath.
If a British voter goes to the European Court and argues that he has no useful democratic voting Right, because his elected representative is obliged by British law to swear allegiance to the Monarch --- Then Britain will have a problem !
Yes, the privileges of the elite will be eventually questioned, as more powers move to Europe ---That is the MAIN reason for the ´Her Majesties Government ´burst of Nationalism --- Not the ´crap´ you believe and hope to be true.
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#301
´Birds of a feather flock together´
I can only offer you the trough -- but if you cannot drink anything but unquestionable British Nationalism, I would be skeptical of the flock´s ´ intellectual ´ support.
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#301
Prince Charles pays his taxes VOLUNTARILY.
--- Ponder that.
Just maybe you will attempt to understand how stupid flag-waving is ?
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Again and again, I keep reading the phrase...jobs for life...almost impossible to lay them off. If Europe is ever going to shake off the wet blanket of this deep recession, this socialist dinosaur known as a job for life has to be slayed, and fast. Tales abound over here in North America of people showing up when they feel like it without retribution. I assure you, Canadian workers are watched very closely.
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#307. At 10:19am on 14 Jul 2010, Chris Camp,
If you're referring to my post #236 at least bother to read it, I was referring to the Eurozone, and the single currency as you will see when you read it, not the EU. Furthermore how many words does it take to remind people like you that there are very very few who hate the EU, we just don't like the current direction it is taking and seek to make it democratic and less autocratic and centralised. Federations rarely work even amongst similar peoples and similar economies and to expect Europe to become a federal super state is just blind political dogma. Like many I'm all for an EU common market with open borders, free trade and movement etc but a super state - never.
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#301
Again ponder !
http://www.progress.org/revwob.htm
You may NOW discuss intelligently ?
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#301
OK, you are now at the trough --- what more can I do ?
http://www.newstatesman.com/200409200005
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"Lenin was not a German spy. There is no evidence to suggest that he was sent to Russia by the German government."
Oh yes there is. [do your own research)
Lenin vel Uliyan was sent in a sealed rail car from Germany to Finland, and from there smuggled to Russia just to do the deed. [he did]
Just to topple Kerensky's government which was prepared to fulfil its obligations and continue to find Germans.
P.S. No, Stalin was not a Nazi spy. USSR's collaboration with III Reich till 1941 was dictated simply by a commonality of interests and similarity of both countries' totalitarian systems.
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Re #276 cool_brush_work.
I'm afraid you're right.
As gen./pres./premier Putin has stated:
"There's no such thing as a FORMER KGB agent".
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"Oh yes there is. [do your own research)"
In other words, there is none.
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#318 #319
You may NOW discuss intelligently ?
Thanks, what a kind offer. Both your links in these posts refer to the book "Who Owns Britain" by Kevin Cahill. Now, if you are linking book reviews and/or editorials I am assuming you have read the book and believe every word? I've read it, and its poorly researched, with biased and prejudiced assumptions and conclusions. Any paper or book that analyses its own incomplete data to draw conclusions is to be treated with scepticism, not viewed as Gospel.
It is interesting you used the New Statesman as a source. This is what Chris Gasson said in New Statesman in 2002 about Mr Cahill , and after having read it, I now understand why you slavishly follow his beliefs:
"Cahill is a class warrior, with the landed aristocracy in his sights. He wants land reform, without full compensation, and he wants it now. The Zanu-PF tendency is alive and well, it seems, and writing books in Devon"
"The best Cahill can do is list four or five landowners (not necessarily the largest ones) in each county, and to reprint data from the 1872 Return of the Owners of Land - the last full survey of British landownership. So what he lacks in factual detail, he makes up for in polemic."
"The landed aristocracy no longer inspire the hatreds of old, because they have been stripped of much of their power and money"
"The nurses and teachers struggling to buy houses in London might have preferred it had Cahill aimed his shotgun at City-rich cash buyers, rather than at dilapidated aristocrats with 2,000 acres of foot-and-mouth blighted land"
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#323. At 5:11pm on 15 Jul 2010, commonsense_expressway,
Maybe the little acorn (to coin MAII's phrase) will finally get the picture, his point is old history and finished years ago, if there is a land owner it is the National Trust and who is appointed to run them, certainly not someone with a pathetic grudge like Cahill.
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#323 and #301 Commonsense_Expressway
What ????
I delivered ALL you wanted and more and your answer is --
HEE HAW, HEE HAW, HEE HAW.
You cannot be serious ???
Links to the British Government, The Independent, The Newstatesman and book review, you sweep ALL under the table with utter arrogance as a reply to your insulting request and taking the high ground ?
Is your reply snobbery, stupidity or intellectual bankruptcy, or a mixture of all three ?
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#324 Buzet23
Your answer is #314.
Personally however, I doubt if #323 finds your wise remarks a compliment.
Most would not.
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Re 308. At 10:20am on 14 Jul 2010, cool_brush_work wrote:
"an expedential rise in cross-border crime rate & illegal immigration?"
I take it you meant "exponential". I take it also that you have a reliable figure source.
Would you be so kind to disclose it?
It would help the argument, if we based it on documented facts.
In fact, your comments have prompted me to a quick search to see if there is any connection between Schengen's implementation and crime rates across Schengenland.
And the answer is...
... there is a connection: Schengen's implementation has brought crime rates down!
Example: http://www.wieninternational.at/en/node/8366
I look forward for a counter-argument (but based on facts, not fanatasies, please).
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295. At 00:26am on 14 Jul 2010, quietoaktree wrote:
"That is why her Majesties British Government wishes to prevent more powers going to Brussels."
Well, I believe it is more delicate than that. You have to understand that while non-British European monarchies are a result of political status quo, the British Crown is actually the major tourist attraction of England and a good source of revenue.
More than 3/4 of London tourists go to visit Buckingham and other Windsor-related attractions.
If Britain shed the royals for a republic, it would loose a lot of cash.
It would be like the Italians destroying Venice or the Greeks flattening down their acropolis.
Why would people go to London, if there were no royals? To walk along the Thames, or see ugly modern buildings?
They would all go to Paris where you can enjoy some good food surrounded by refined architecture.
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323 commonsense writes:
"Cahill is a class warrior, with the landed aristocracy in his sights. He wants land reform, without full compensation, and he wants it now. The Zanu-PF tendency is alive and well, it seems, and writing books in Devon"
"The best Cahill can do is list four or five landowners (not necessarily the largest ones) in each county, and to reprint data from the 1872 Return of the Owners of Land - the last full survey of British landownership. So what he lacks in factual detail, he makes up for in polemic."
Yes, but is he right? Or is it the usual 'shoot the messenger'?
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#328
The discussion as you may have noticed is Britain´s superiority over the rest of Europe especially concerning democracy. The usual lie propagated is the Monarch is ONLY a figurehead and as you say good for tourism, there were however few sightseeing tourists hundreds of years ago.
The information in the posted links is generally unknown in Britain. The Monarch could be kept for tourism of course, but the active Feudal System has no place in Europe or in Britain itself. As the articles make clear, it is a traditionally corrupt system and cannot be called Democratic.
This is difficult for many Brits to accept -- as is a possible superior Europe.
But that, I see you are also experiencing !
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#329 Margaret Howard
If you read the links in #318 and #319 you will realize how the British Empire functioned --also at the cost of the average working Brit TODAY.
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#329 and #328
The BBC has just reported that the UK Monarch wishes to sell a PART of Regent Street in London.
It also reported that the Monarch also owns 55% of coastline, seabed rights, 300,000 acres of farmland and shopping centers.(?) no mention was made of the other land (building,forests etc).
The farmland is of particular interest because of EU subsidies. (400,000 Pounds for the Sandringham estate alone)
It is a pity that the usual Brit contributors avoid discussions on this, how it affects British EU decisions and if a serious conflict of interest is present with respect to British EU citizens Rights. British elected MP´s MUST swear allegiance to the Monarch and not to the Country or its citizens.
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#332. At 01:51am on 16 Jul 2010, quietoaktree,
Like many I am not particularly Royalist as I don't really care much for them but one thing that would not set right with me is for the Royal owned property to be grabbed and made the property of the people. I would find it nauseous to see a president Blair, or President Brown or President Cameron etc luxuriating it around in a former palace in the style of an African dictator. Therefore I can't quite see where class warriors like Cahill are coming from other than that they have a crazy inbred grudge relating to a scenario that happened centuries ago. The Royal family is a lot different to what it was even 50 years ago and old prejudices, jealousy's have no place in modern society.
As for "British elected MP´s MUST swear allegiance to the Monarch and not to the Country or its citizens.", the queen being head of the state means that they are swearing allegiance to the state. It is just semantics to try and make a distinction between the two in what is simply a ceremonial occasion of tradition. As for EU citizens rights, would you like to elucidate exactly what rights we have that are actually attainable rather than being just mere words to be bandied around in defence of the current EU's direction.
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#332
The BBC has just reported that the UK MONARCH WISHES TO SELL a part of Regent Street in London
It doesn't belong to the monarch ,it belongs to the Crown Estate. The Queen has no say in the running of the Estate, or what it buys or sells and the surpluses are paid to the UK Treasury.
#332 and buzet #333
"It is a pity that the usual Brit contributors avoid discussions on this, how it affects British EU decisions"
"As for "British elected MP´s MUST swear allegiance to the Monarch and not to the Country or its citizens.", the queen being head of the state means that they are swearing allegiance to the state."
In 1999 the Sinn Féin member of parliament Martin McGuinness challenged the Oath of Allegiance required of British MPs in the EUROPEAN Court of Human Rights. The application was deemed inadmissible on the basis that the requirement of an oath to the reigning monarch was "reasonably viewed as an affirmation of loyalty to the constitutional principles which support... the workings of representative democracy in the respondent State
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commonsense_expressway
Only a few hours after my accusation against you (#325) The BBC World Service reported some of the Monarchs´property and Rights over large parts of Britain. I point out this is only that of ONE person.
Your ´down-playing´and mockery of the evidence you required of me, can be properly described as INTELLECTUAL DISHONESTY.
You have deliberately (and repeatedly) attempted to block serious discussion on the UK.
I have warned you of mis-placed Nationalism but that has not discouraged you from being obstructive on this INTERNATIONAL Blog platform in the most primitive ways.
You should seriously consider whether you are capable and willing to participate further --I see no loss for the Blog if you decline !
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#335
Are you completely mental?
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#333 Buzet23
While I respect your ´beliefs´, there are others who argue that they are ´beliefs´ --myself included.
Without a willingness to analyze (say) the Newstatesman article (#319) or that of Cahill (and others) and honestly attempt to disprove the claims of unfairness against the British people --I am sure you will agree no useful discussion can occur.
I was insultingly requested `To put my money where my mouth is´--As Americans quaintly say.
I did, so please accept that ´I want to see the Beef´ --Another quaint American saying.
Further requesting me to accept another a plate of non-fattening ´Beliefs´without a little work from your side, unfortunately prevents me from appreciating a difference between the contributions of Commonsense_Expressway and your own.
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#337. At 11:59am on 16 Jul 2010, quietoaktree,
I have investigated the 'beliefs' of more than a few committed issue people over the years and Cahill comes under that category, he will always find something to 'prove' his theories (at least in his opinion), just as Von Daniken does in his attempts to prove aliens exist. The references in your posts #318 and #319 refer to the redistribution of land, this is more fitting of a communist style Zimbabwe than a democracy and the unsaid step in this redistribution is no doubt that it will be owned by THE people and NOT people, or in other words the state(Party). As I've said previously 'power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely' and to seriously consider such a redistribution simply because of being miffed about the aristocracy would just turn the UK into another communist state with the already discredited political elite playing Kings and Queens in the 'liberated' estates.
It is therefore nonsensical to keep asking us to research this when in your mind, like Cahill's, there is only one true answer. In fact there are many related topics here and many different solutions as nothing is fixed, but a communist style land grab is nothing but theft based on pathetic jealousy and envy.
The point Cahill makes about Ireland and there being no council tax due to land being redistributed is rubbish, there are local taxes throughout the EU, some are poll taxes and some are land taxes and some countries use both as Belgium has both a poll tax and a cadastral (land) tax. The UK left fought Thatchers attempts to introduce a poll tax and as a result you now have a rampant unfair council tax, the fault for this lies with the Socialists not land ownership. The local tax concept is much fairer as you just pay a percentage of the tax you owe to your council, so those who can pay do and those who are on low incomes don't pay which is much fairer.
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#336
I was in the process of complimenting your change of `discussion´tactics but then unfortunately #336 appeared.
So far so good.
The ( wishy washy) decision of the European Court in no way clarified the `belief´of what the oath actually implies. ( look for your own links this time !). The courts decision allowed the deliberate ambiguities between Crown, Monarch and State to continue and who owns (or does not own what).
My various links clearly verifies this confusion -- and I fail to understand your unwillingness to admit (as the Links show) how detrimental a continuation of the FEUDAL SYSTEM ( remember that) is to the British citizens ( formally Subjects) is.
The Feudal System is still alive and well and not only Cahill make the accusation. This not only pertains to the Monarch.
As I have mentioned, Prince Charles pays taxes VOLUNTARILY (WHO DOES NOT PAY ?), however the estate of the late Queen Mother was freed of Inheritance Tax (remember that also ?) by Blair and therefore by ´Her Majesties Government.´
I still fail to understand your steadfastness with your views ---can you explain ?
I am sure Europeans will want clarity as to whether British EU decisions are a continuation of the Feudal System -- and separate from it-- or not !
I also heard that `profits´go to the Treasury (another Google search ), and the EU subsidies ?
The plot thickens !
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#338
My question is only whether Britain can be considered a Democratic country or NOT !
At the present Feudalism appears to have the upper- hand.
Before you knock Feudalism, it worked BOTH ways and not in the apparently ONE direction of Britain today.
That is the main criticism by others and myself while not forgetting the un-democratic history leading to the present societal political and financial inequalities --which cannot be denied.
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~340. At 2:44pm on 16 Jul 2010, quietoaktree,
I think I see where you're coming from but I think you've missed the target, the true aristocrats these days are the so called 'elected' politicians and especially now the EU politicians. You're correct about feudalism having worked in both ways in the past the land owner needed the farm workers to work the land and survive, and a lot of my ancestors did just that as they were agricultural workers. I tend to think that the blame for today's inequalities is less to do with the traditional rich, who tended to be calm and respectful, but more to do with the nouveau riche who think they've made it and assume airs and graces, especially the politicians. I certainly came to that conclusion in the 70's in the Dulwich area of South London and I do not exclude numerous so called Socialists I knew at that time including a former mayor of London who would like to get his nose back in the trough.
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#340 Buzet23
Feudalism had its rules overlooked by the Church. The use of the land was distributed from the Monarch down like a pyramid, with each social level required to portion what they are given to a lower level. Princes, Dukes, Earls, Church down to the serfs who were required to work and fight for the higher level who gave him the land to use.
Through many reasons, the Laws of Feudalism were disbanded (more than often by those at the top of the pyramid) or destroyed as with the Scottish Clearances etc.
The question then is who owns the land which was under the Feudal system for the common good and who has profited ?
I disagree with you, that to question ownership is Socialism or Communism --the land has been stolen from the common good under the Laws of Feudalism. The present owners claim the laws of Feudalism as their right to ownership. This is false, as they had social responsibilities of land distribution THEMSELVES which they no longer respect. The accusation of theft is closer to the truth.
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#342. At 11:16pm on 16 Jul 2010, quietoaktree,
I'm not an expert on Feudalism I have to say and I have just looked at Wikipedia as there is a long article of the various senses and meanings that can be attributed to that word. There is no mention however of an actual 'Law of Feudalism' so I can't see what your last paragraph is based on if there was no law of the land. The article does mention fiefs and especially the Scottish system which seems to have been true feudalism as against the English system which whilst starting out as military 'vassal' based ended up as a social feudalism where the Lord provided land for the serfs to work.
My own feeling is that who owns the Lords land and who profited from it is not life shattering as it is in effect nothing more than a business, who owns the factories where people work? often unknown company's based anywhere in the world and unknown shareholders who can be anyone including you and me. In the case of England it is clear that originally the Lords owned their land rather than the King of the day as our Kings right to rule was always contested by other Lords who also claimed the throne. In recent years many of the Lord's estates have been sold to the National Trust as part of an IHT settlement with the revenue after a Lord's death, so it is not clear how many Lord's these days actually have title to their estates. Others have sold off parts of their estates to farmers which does mean land has been distributed but I doubt if figures exist for how much has been sold. When you say "the land has been stolen from the common good under the Laws of Feudalism" I can't see what you mean as if they are Trust property we have access to visit those National assets. If you mean farming land is not being farmed then I would be interested to see where this is happening as even the Lords need an income to maintain their estates and leaving arable land fallow would be a failure. If you just mean the land should be in public ownership rather than being the property of us, the common person, then that is Socialism or Communism and I am against that.
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#343 Buzet23
I attempted by ´Law(s) of feudalism´ to prevent Feudalism being interpreted as a ´Free for all´ as it had (has) it structures in Britain at least. With the Church as its safeguard (protective shield for all), also at a price.
The Lord class was subordinate (I forgot them !) to the other Aristocracy mentioned in #342.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/who-owns-britain-biggest-landowners-agree-to-reveal-scale-of-holdings-443956.html
I feel the various links demonstrate the extent of ´transparency´that exists and as is mentioned, there does appear to be real ´class distinction´ if Prince Charles is praised for paying taxes voluntarily.
I remember the Pole Tax debate. But if I remember correctly the idea of Thatcher was to shift the Tax burden from owners to renters ? She was knighted for it ?
Perhaps you are able to follow my ideas better, where with the ´ Oath of Allegiance´ , remnants of Feudalism, EU agricultural subsidies and legal tax avoidance Britain does not represent a European ideal.
I feel there is enough evidence to show the average Brit has been far from fairly treated. One thing is clear he NEVER profited from the EMPIRE ?
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Re #344
You wrote all this before & it was demonstrably utter tosh & gibberish then and nothing in the intervening few weeks has altered that fact.
And, as before, all Your comments on the UK reveal a 'transparent' bias amply reflecting You still don't know Your 'Poll' from Your 'Pole'!
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