A Perfect Storm is Brewing

[scottycelt]

Well, not really. It gives a good idea about the incompetence and shallowness of much American TV, but I expect most people have realised that anyway. In reality, as opposed to in scotty's imaginary land where the EU is wonderful and the US is bad, most of us who have dealings with the USA know exactly what the SR is about. It's not perfect and it's not free from squabbles and in my view it's one-sided in a lot of aspects. But it's there and it's worth having.



Good grief! Ein Volk, ein Europa! Ils ne passeront pas! Do you do Hollywood scripts, scotty? But of course there's an alternative. There's always an alternative.





I don't think anybody's feeding it to us. It's sort of there isn't it? The whole mess, on the table in front of us, plain for all to see.

Fancy you disagreeing with me on the EU, Simon ...

I certainly agree that obvious mistakes were made in allowing countries like Greece to join the Euro so early, but that does not make the currency A Bad Thing in itself any more than the US Dollar is A Bad Thing for any American State.

I find it a bit pitiful for UK politicians to be congratulating themselves for 'staying out of the Euro'. We didn't 'stay out' we were in no fit position to 'go in', because we were forced out of the ERM which was supposed to be the prelude to the UK signing-up !

Eventually, when we sort ourselves out, we will join ... whether it is ten or twenty years hence ... it happened with the Common Market, Lisbon Treaty, etc etc and it will happen with the Euro ... inevitable, Simon, unless the world comes to a shuddering halt beforehand!

[Roehre]

.... but all this anti-EU stuff we are constantly fed surely needs a bit of reciprocal balance ..

[teamsaint]

the three main UK parties,big business, the banks, big agriculture are all in favour of the EU.

The pro EU side of the balance balance looks fine to me !!

[scottycelt]

the three main UK parties,big business, the banks, big agriculture are all in favour of the EU.

And the major Trades' Unions, ...

Which makes one genuinely wonder why the overwhelming majority of editors and columnists in the UK Press apparently think they are in a better position to judge ...?

Getting back to the return to the hoi polloi of the now plain Mr Goodwin, I find it hilarious that much of the Press appear to be 'coming out' against the removal of his knighthood after years of complaining that he ever got one in the first place!

Mind you, they are right this time. Goodwin was only one of many millions who were just as 'responsible' for the financial crash of 2008, including many leading politicians.

It is a shabby, populist, irrelevant sideshow like the berating of Hester for the bonus arrangements in his contract which were agreed and set up by ... now, would you believe it ... the politicians themselves.

[teamsaint]

And the major Trades' Unions, ...

Which makes one genuinely wonder why the overwhelming majority of editors and columnists in the UK Press apparently think they are in a better position to judge ...?

Getting back to the return to the hoi polloi of the now plain Mr Goodwin, I find it hilarious that much of the Press appear to be 'coming out' against the removal of his knighthood after years of complaining that he ever got one in the first place!

Mind you, they are right this time. Goodwin was only one of many millions who were just as 'responsible' for the financial crash of 2008, including many leading politicians.

It is a shabby, populist, irrelevant sideshow like the berating of Hester for the bonus arrangements in his contract which were agreed and set up by ... now, would you believe it ... the politicians themselves.

We I wouldn't trust newspaper editors any further than the other people I mentioned.

But it doesn't stop the "Establishment" pro EU stance any more well argued.

Just because lots of influential people at the top are in favour of something, doesn't make it a well thought out case necessarily........

As for the bankers, knighthoods, and bonuses.........all just part of a game designed to distract us.

[aeolium]

Can I recommend last night's edition of Newsnight with a report by Paul Mason on the horrific situation in Greece (and the discussion afterwards is also interesting, particularly the comments by the lady on the panel)?

This is a tragedy as bad as any penned by Sophocles or Euripides, and even if Greece has in part been the author of its own problems here, it does not deserve the suffering, humiliation and immiseration being inflicted on it by external powers in a policy catastrophe of monumental proportions. We seem to have a generation of European politicians who are utterly ignorant of their own and European history, ignorant for instance that three of the countries most affected by this crisis, Greece, Spain and Portugal have been military dictatorships within living memory, ignorant too that the infliction of a policy of severe austerity in Germany following the Great Depression led to a huge increase in the popularity of the Nazi party and its eventual triumph (given that it only won 2.8% of the vote in the 1928 election).

Even the current EU/IMF authors of the bailout policy in Greece must know that their plan is doomed to failure - even on the best projections Greece will still have over 120% of debt in 2020 and presumably compelled to endure further austerity to the crack of doom. And it is being done not primarily to help Greece but primarily to save the euro project and creditor bankers. For Greece itself, painful though it would be, default and exit from the euro would be a better option.

I don't think EU policymakers realise the extent to which their unswerving commitment to monetary union is putting in danger the whole European project, the extent to which - as George Soros commented - in trying to save the euro, they will destroy the EU. Contrary to what Merkel and Sarkozy stated, the EU is not synonymous with the euro. True friends of Europe would realise that.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

well said aeolium but it does have the feel of being beyond the grip, any grip .... weapons weather and welfare are all in crisis together .... scary i think ...

[eighthobstruction]

And that's why , whilst I think it correct to let the 17 use the EU offices and resources etc....a great deal more noise should be made about this anomaly being granted....rather than demanded /expected by the 17....

tis horrible isn't it....

[Petrushka]

Can I recommend last night's edition of Newsnight with a report by Paul Mason on the horrific situation in Greece (and the discussion afterwards is also interesting, particularly the comments by the lady on the panel)?

This is a tragedy as bad as any penned by Sophocles or Euripides, and even if Greece has in part been the author of its own problems here, it does not deserve the suffering, humiliation and immiseration being inflicted on it by external powers in a policy catastrophe of monumental proportions. We seem to have a generation of European politicians who are utterly ignorant of their own and European history, ignorant for instance that three of the countries most affected by this crisis, Greece, Spain and Portugal have been military dictatorships within living memory, ignorant too that the infliction of a policy of severe austerity in Germany following the Great Depression led to a huge increase in the popularity of the Nazi party and its eventual triumph (given that it only won 2.8% of the vote in the 1928 election).

Even the current EU/IMF authors of the bailout policy in Greece must know that their plan is doomed to failure - even on the best projections Greece will still have over 120% of debt in 2020 and presumably compelled to endure further austerity to the crack of doom. And it is being done not primarily to help Greece but primarily to save the euro project and creditor bankers. For Greece itself, painful though it would be, default and exit from the euro would be a better option.

I don't think EU policymakers realise the extent to which their unswerving commitment to monetary union is putting in danger the whole European project, the extent to which - as George Soros commented - in trying to save the euro, they will destroy the EU. Contrary to what Merkel and Sarkozy stated, the EU is not synonymous with the euro. True friends of Europe would realise that.

Great analysis, aeolium, with which I entirely agree. The point about Greece, Spain and Portugal being military dictatorships in living memory is well made and one which I have been making for some time. Worth remembering also that both Greece and Spain have had civil wars in near living memory (1936 and 1944 respectively). Euro politicians should take some time out to read Churchill on the Greek civil war in his Second World War, a sideshow in the context of the time but curiously relevant today.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

more to the point is the role of the CIA in fostering right wing anti communist governments in Greece Spain Italy and Portugal .....in the period after the WW2 .... not to mention the pre-unification German arrangements ... popular people centred politics has been under attack in Europe by both the Third Reich, the USSR and the yanks for most of the last century ... er not to forget the brit tory party and the property interest in general eh ....