Europe!

[tubaman]

The death of the Euro will be an economic disaster for the UK. the biggest European trade partner is the EU, if that goes we all become a pack of have- nothing states. In the a world dominated by China Russia and the US we have NO bargaining power alone. Therefore it is better for the Uk to work from the inside, not the outside. The EU needs to change and one way it has to change is to get rid of the veto. This will take power not only away from Merkel, Sarkozy AND Cameron but also the little countries that veto anything that doesnt fit their own unrelated agenda (eg Northern Cyprus vetoing Turkey's involvement in EU discussions with Syria which practically destroyed said discussions).

The death of the Euro will mean very little to us. Life will go on as it did before the Euro. The Euro and the EU are completely different entities.

 

[TotallyFreaked]

My issue would be his motives for the veto. Is it the right decision for Britain or simply a nod to the Eurosceptic back-benchers and the financial market scared of the implications of more financial control and the 'robin hood' tax. My feelings it the later and will prove to have implications far greater than his little peanut brain can comprehend (Ok I'm not his biggest fan). Surely it is better for Britain to be shaping the new Europe than simply listening outside the door and once the financial markets realise that we do not hold any power anymore they will be slowly making their exit. I think we also need to ask ourselves who do you want to be governed by, the financial institutes or the European union? Bit of a rock and a hard place but know which i would prefer.

 

[looney]

After about 800 years of knocking the shit out of each other, in the late 40's, Europe finally realised that war was not the way to go. Integration and a strong trading group would mean that inter-European wars would never occur again and that we would all be the better for it.
The Euro may not yet be the best way to aid this but, individual currencies can be " picked off " by the big financial organisations. Remember when George Soros said that Britain's Pound was overvalued and as such everyone dumped £'s, the Government lost Billions and Soro's and his gang picked up a huge profit. Europe is still getting the hang of working together but the alternative, ie, the fracturing of the EU will only benefit one or two countries and lead us back to the bad old days.

The British economy is not strong enough to stand on its own and as such I can forsee the big players in the City being the tail that wags the dog leading to a huge financial industry benefitting an elite few while the rest of us struggle on minimum wages in service industries buttering sandwiches.

Your a comedian right?

 

[Not Andy Naylor]

The problem is that much of our value to both the US and China and India is that we are part of Europe, even if slightly semi-detached - and if Europe sinks, it pulls us with it to some extent. Cameron was out to appease the Eurosceptic nutters and seems to have forgotten his pro-Europe coalition partners, although it's likely that the lickspittle Clegg is too in love with his small share of power to show some backbone over this.

Best comments were on QT last night, that it was asif some friends' house was on fire and instead of trying to help put it out, Cameron wanted to go in and nick stuff off the shelves. And then from the French, who said Cameron was "like someone who goes to a wife-swapping party but doesn't take his own wife."

 

[beorhthelm]

What utter cobblers. Regulation would only be bad for top bankers and the ruling elite. Deregulation is the root cause of making the markets and financial systems so unstable, not just now but over the past two decades, and the reason the whole world is in such a monetary mess.

do you know what the regulations proposed are? i confess i havent found the details yet, but one of them is the financial transaction tax. this would ruin all financial industy, not just in London, but in europe, as the trading would leave the next day to somewhere else. this isnt bluff, if you work with 0.1 % margins on trades and someone is going to tax you 0.1%, what are you going to do? those transactions left behind will be consumer based, so all our pensions and mortgage costs will increase by 0.1%. Even the EU commission themselves said it would not raise what is proposed and lead to loss billions of existing revenue of 10s of thousands of jobs and investment in EU.

as for the current regulation, there's far more than you think. European finance is heavily regulated, which is why most have major trading operations in London. in fact one of the main reasons for Greece and other EU countries getting in this pickle is because banks and pensions are required to invest in bonds as they are "safe"...

 

[tedebear]

Best comments were on QT last night, that it was asif some friends' house was on fire and instead of trying to help put it out, Cameron wanted to go in and nick stuff off the shelves.

Yes but they set it on fire themselves in this Euro analagy? and frankly what is there to nick?

 

[Westdene Seagull]

My issue would be his motives for the veto. Is it the right decision for Britain or simply a nod to the Eurosceptic back-benchers and the financial market scared of the implications of more financial control and the 'robin hood' tax. My feelings it the later and will prove to have implications far greater than his little peanut brain can comprehend (Ok I'm not his biggest fan). Surely it is better for Britain to be shaping the new Europe than simply listening outside the door and once the financial markets realise that we do not hold any power anymore they will be slowly making their exit. I think we also need to ask ourselves who do you want to be governed by, the financial institutes or the European union? Bit of a rock and a hard place but know which i would prefer.

I'm assuming from that post that you argued we would be better in the Euro than out of it when the debate was going on ? Thankfully, history as it stands currently proved it would have been wrong to enter the Euro.

Would I like to be governed by the EU or the financial institutions - neither thank you. Both are undemocratic and corrupt. While not perfect I'll stick to electing a British government via the ballot box.

 

[BigGully]

My issue would be his motives for the veto. Is it the right decision for Britain or simply a nod to the Eurosceptic back-benchers and the financial market scared of the implications of more financial control and the 'robin hood' tax. My feelings it the later and will prove to have implications far greater than his little peanut brain can comprehend (Ok I'm not his biggest fan). Surely it is better for Britain to be shaping the new Europe than simply listening outside the door and once the financial markets realise that we do not hold any power anymore they will be slowly making their exit. I think we also need to ask ourselves who do you want to be governed by, the financial institutes or the European union? Bit of a rock and a hard place but know which i would prefer.

But the 'euro-sceptic' politicians have been proved to be correct on this one, its the pro Europe groups that have been shown to be incorrect.

Why would anyone not be 'euro-sceptic' at present, its unravelling in front of us.

 

[Not Andy Naylor]

Your a comedian right?

This from someone who styles themselves "looney" ...

 

[Not Andy Naylor]

But the 'euro-sceptic' politicians have been proved to be correct on this one, its the pro Europe groups that have been shown to be incorrect.

Why would anyone not be 'euro-sceptic' at present, its unravelling in front of us.

People can be as Eurosceptic as they like, but unfortunately standing back and washing our hands of the whole thing won't prevent our being dragged into the mess. And if the reason is to protect Eton Dave's mates in the City, then it's even worse ...

 

[fly high]

The most vociferous voices damning our reluctance to go along with the new Euro model are the very people that told us that we must join the Euro in the first place.

They have been proved wrong and are now damaged goods, and I wish they would show some semblance of humility.

So the Greek economy is a basket case, getta way !!!

It has always been a basket case as has Italy's and others and those politicians knew it when the embarked on this flawed enterprise.

Their judgement has been proved to be questionable and they do not deserve our support.

I am not yet ready to turn on ourselves.

I certainly do not wish to be told by others that we have some obligation to do so, after all it was you lot that relentlessly told me of the virtue of the Eurozone model in the first place !!

So please be quiet. you were wrong then and your probably wrong now !!!

Spot on. They were told this venture was flawed but carried on anyway. They were supposed to follow rules on percentage of debt to GDP but as the Germans & French decided to ignore it themselves they were hardly in a position to police other countries. The rules should have been stricter in the first place & every country forced to follow them. As for this talk that now it will all be Britain’s fault if the euro fails it is utter nonsense. The Germans & French have dithered for far too long & the general view of economists seems to be if they had acted decisively 18 months ago it would have been far cheaper & resolved much quicker.

Also as a previous post on this tread said 'we were never told in the70s that the Common Market was really a path to US of Europe'. Even the No campaigners must have know it's true purpose but all I can remember them going on about was how food would cost more as we’d have to scrape all our preferential trade agreements with Commonwealth countries, who would now want a fair price for their goods. I don’t even remember being told that every other CM country could send their fishing fleets into our water to pillage them.

 

[BigGully]

People can be as Eurosceptic as they like, but unfortunately standing back and washing our hands of the whole thing won't prevent our being dragged into the mess. And if the reason is to protect Eton Dave's mates in the City, then it's even worse ...

Oh come on, I would prefer to support 'Eton Dave' than the unelected corrupt Eurozone politicians, why should we.

This isn't war, its a flawed Euro experiment, that many foresaw, yet they progressed without a mandate and delivered very little to us, whilst we continued to pour millions into their corrupt coffers.

 

[vegster]

Your a comedian right?

And, your a looney ?

 

[TotallyFreaked]

I'm assuming from that post that you argued we would be better in the Euro than out of it when the debate was going on ? Thankfully, history as it stands currently proved it would have been wrong to enter the Euro.

Would I like to be governed by the EU or the financial institutions - neither thank you. Both are undemocratic and corrupt. While not perfect I'll stick to electing a British government via the ballot box.

Why would it be wrong? Whether we are in the Euro or not the implications for Britain are huge. Its a global captialist market hence why the problems in Europe are having a huge effect on our financial markets. We are part of this mess whether we like it or not and pretending it's someone elses problem that will easily go away, for me, is not the right answer.

Personally I feel most politicians are simply puppets nowadays, banks and multi-nationals have long had the real power.

 

[severnside gull]

listening to a soundbite of Sarkozy (aka Mussolini to Merkel's Hitler) talking about a euro-wide taxation policy. He hasn't grasped that no matter whether Greece and Italy have the same policy on charging taxes, their people still won't pay them - it does seem to be the crux of the matter when talking about a unified Europe - it ignores cultural differences which can only be overcome (perhaps "overwhelmed" would be more appropriate?) by a single dominant power. Angela Merkel, I believe, understands that (which is also I suspect, a cultural thing).

 

[BigGully]

Why would it be wrong? Whether we are in the Euro or not the implications for Britain are huge. Its a global captialist market hence why the problems in Europe are having a huge effect on our financial markets. We are part of this mess whether we like it or not and pretending it's someone elses problem that will easily go away, for me, is not the right answer.

Personally I feel most politicians are simply puppets nowadays, banks and multi-nationals have long had the real power.

Your cynicism of politicians is rightly shared by many.

But to somehow feel that we should have an unstinting obligation to a failing economic experiment, propped up by a political process that lacks transparency and credibility is bizarre.

 

[Westdene Seagull]

Why would it be wrong?

Because it's now been made perfectly clear that one size blatantly can't fit all. One of the tools available to a government in times of fiscal downturns is controlling interest rates. I know the BoE officially has control of this but in reality the government can have a say as well - hence our historically low rates. In the Euro we'd be tied to a rate that best suited France and Germany not us. We would in affect have little control over our own economy. That reason alone is why we should NEVER join the Euro.

 

[beorhthelm]

it seems Cameron has been badly outflanked by Sarkozy (who about two years ago was steering France towards a UK-like philosophy), who's brought Sweden, Denmark and Poland into the tent, while distracting everyone from the massive chasm between France and Germany on who actually pays for everything and how. the French wants the ECB have the power to borrow and inevitably print their way out of the issue, which the Germans are dead against (and will veto behind the scenes too). expect a sustantial U turn from Cameron.

 

[Uncle C]

Merkels agenda (she of the never print money campaign).

And what exactly is wrong with that policy?

 

[CheeseRolls]

The death of the Euro will mean very little to us. Life will go on as it did before the Euro. The Euro and the EU are completely different entities.

Really ? Let us know which cave you live in and we can send someone around to explain it to you.