Screw the Penguins, let's talk about vaginas

[scottycelt]

If anyone here would like to make the argument that EU fiscal mechanisms are working for a common EU good, for the good of the various populations in the EU, then I'll read it with interest and gratitude ).

.

I don't think anyone here has any need to argue that the EU has been an incalculable benefit as regards the economic security and standard of living of most Europeans. These are simple facts ... more wealth and available health care for the average citizen and more co-operation between the member countries, unlike the comparatively recent past which saw millions slaughtered due to petty national rivalries. That's precisely why most still outside the EU are so desperately keen to join, and no member national government, including that of populist bandwagon eurosceptics like David Cameron and George Osborne, is advising its people to quit. In fact, quite the opposite, as they constantly tell us (if somewhat reluctantly) how vital the EU is to the UK's economic prospects!

I'm not sure what you mean by 'EU fiscal mechanisms' ... each member state has its own chosen fiscal policies ... so I assume you are referring to the Euro. Even within that system national governments retain there own fiscal mechanisms within guidelines, but of course cannot individually print money and devalue a separate currency like the UK, which is outside the system. In fact, the general call (from some of those right in the thick of it) is for more Euro central authority not less ...

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/02/us-spain-economy-europe-idUSBRE85107V20120602

The problem with the Euro is not the major currency itself, but that some countries were palpably unfit to join when they did, given the current half-finished set-up.. Only the British press and politicians could now be smugly congratulating themselves at the UK also being unfit to join, and that 'honour' being embarrassingly demonstrated to the whole world by (ironically) a Greek currency speculator ,before the UK ever got any real chance of doing so!

You appear to be calling for Europe to adopt Communism as if much of the people of Europe had never recently been enslaved by the same system until something called the Berlin Wall was smashed to the ground by the very same people.

Maybe you, in turn, may wish to ask a Pole whether he/she would really like to swap their current existence (for all its problems) for that of the old bread shortages and dozens of Communist tanks on the streets?

[JohnSkelton]

once Greece has the kinds of austerity measures that are present in Britain.

?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2012/mar/15/greece-breadline-hiv-malaria

[JohnSkelton]

Most of your post is probably better directed at a Euro-sceptic than at me. Your concluding peroration is also very fine, but I can't rustle up a Pole to talk to at this time of the morning.

What I was hoping for was some argument that the austerity measures and the fiscal stability pact were intended to benefit European people rather than financial institutions; that it was incorrect to say that their effect would be the immiseration of peripheral economies in the cause of protecting Europe's 'core' strong economies.

[teamsaint]

A simple question and two simple points.

Question. If the EU and the eurozone is run for the benefit of the peopl and not the banks, why won't the ECB lend direct to the spanish Italian and Greek governments at the same rates that they lend to banks?

(Subsidiary question.....who controls the credit agencies and the billions they create for their friends in the banks?)

Point. We are still involved in (economic ) wars. We just don't care to fight them inside European borders these days.

The banking/financial stuff is core to what the EU does and is. I just wish it wasn't...maybe then we could have an EU we can trust.

[scottycelt]

A simple question and two simple points.

Question. If the EU and the eurozone is run for the benefit of the peopl and not the banks, why won't the ECB lend direct to the spanish Italian and Greek governments at the same rates that they lend to banks?

(Subsidiary question.....who controls the credit agencies and the billions they create for their friends in the banks?)

Point. We are still involved in (economic ) wars. We just don't care to fight them inside European borders these days.

The banking/financial stuff is core to what the EU does and is. I just wish it wasn't...maybe then we could have an EU we can trust.

Risk is an important factor for any lender and you cannot expect any financial institution not to take that into account, surely.

When I applied for my first loan as a young man I was refused by my bank because of my low salary but was directed towards another bank which accepted me at twice the interest rate because of the perceived risk of lending to poor little Scottycelt..

I thought that was grossly unfair that poorer people who never even had the chance to prove their credit worthiness should pay much higher interest rates than rich people, and still do, but I haven't been able to convince myself there is an easy answer to all of this.

After all, if I loaned out money would I also demand a premium for perceived 'risk' to claw back as much as possible in the event of any default of the borrower?

Of course I would!

[teamsaint]

which are points well made Scotty.....however, we are constantly told that the risk is that the banks go pop.....the italian government isn't going to go "bust", the worst that can happen is that it is unable to roll over its debts at a certain point. Ok this might look like going bust, but if the ECB lent them the money on terms anywhere near those that it lends to the banks, it would all work fine.

So from where am sitting , the ECB is lending to the riskier institution at a lower rate......which doesn't fit the usual model.
Looks like a scheme to make the banks rich at taxpayers expense to me.

[JohnSkelton]

Risk is an important factor for any lender and you cannot expect any financial institution not to take that into account, surely.

But they didn't take risk properly into account; whereas in the reckoning the emphasis is continually upon protecting them from the consequences of that failure to take risk into account. That can't simply be described as banks going speculatively crazy and needing to get back to their proper functions. Economic theory and practice of the past thirty or so years has emphasised at a personal level wage restraint / suppression, while relying on a model of yearly growth in consumer spending and of property ownership (with the planned depletion of public housing and the consequent stratospheric rises in property 'values' and mortgage commitments). And in Europe supposed financial rules were twisted and mitigated and ignored to allow for the expansion of the Eurozone, with a trade-off between development for the peripheral economies and competitive advantage for the major economies (especially Germany. It's not anti-German or anti-European to point to the obvious disadvantages for what is a massive export economy of having the strongest currency within a trading group and the advantages for that economy of a single currency).

The point is that European leaders, EU economists, banks, accountants, the ECB, the IMF, were positively triumphalist up to the mid-2000s. George Osborne as shadow Chancellor made a now notorious speech adversely comparing the UK's supposedly over regulated financial sector to that of Ireland, and saying that a small country, Ireland, was illuminating the path for all in the future.

The EU response to the crisis hasn't been to bailout 'ailing economies'. It's been to protect risk taking financial institutions from the adverse consequences of risk. A vastly disproportionate harm falling upon the borrowers (sure, there are internal problems in Greece, largely of the making of the political and professional classes. The sorts of people who have already got their money out of the country, before what are still long overdue emergency measures could stop them doing so).

What may yet happen are emergency EU payments to stop the very basic infrastructure in Greece collapsing, to prevent a total collapse of the healthcare system. That's not motivated by solidarity - it's driven by fear. Who knows - maybe at some stage EU peacekeeping troops will be deployed in Greece? It doesn't say much for the leadership and economic / political consensus in the EU through the 2000s that Greece is now a failing / failed state, and that the fear is of on the one hand 'contagion', on the other of mass violence.

If someone can convincingly show me that the above is mistaken I will read them with close attention. Being pro- or anti-EU is stale and irrelevant, at least in the usual way it's discussed (IMO).

[aeolium]

What may yet happen are emergency EU payments to stop the very basic infrastructure in Greece collapsing, to prevent a total collapse of the healthcare system. That's not motivated by solidarity - it's driven by fear. Who knows - maybe at some stage EU peacekeeping troops will be deployed in Greece? It doesn't say much for the leadership and economic / political consensus in the EU through the 2000s that Greece is now a failing / failed state, and that the fear is of on the one hand 'contagion', on the other of mass violence.

Not only that, but the same economic wretchedness affects other countries in the Eurozone like Ireland, Portugal, Spain and possibly Italy, with high and increasing levels of unemployment, zero or negative growth and little prospect of growth developing because of the tight fiscal policy being applied by the EU. This will also have a knock-on effect on even the stronger economies in the Eurozone which used to trade profitably with those southern economies. It is a kind of death spiral of certain economies which are being kept going on life support. And the problem which bedevilled the Eurozone at its creation, namely the very different strengths of its member economies without any fiscal union to enable those differences to be smoothed out, remains unresolved. And a fiscal union which requires Germany (and the other stronger economies) to transfer huge sums of money to the weaker economies will not be accepted by Germany, not just because its constitution does not allow it but also it would be unacceptable to most of its voters.

[teamsaint]

But they didn't take risk properly into account; whereas in the reckoning the emphasis is continually upon protecting them from the consequences of that failure to take risk into account. That can't simply be described as banks going speculatively crazy and needing to get back to their proper functions. Economic theory and practice of the past thirty or so years has emphasised at a personal level wage restraint / suppression, while relying on a model of yearly growth in consumer spending and of property ownership (with the planned depletion of public housing and the consequent stratospheric rises in property 'values' and mortgage commitments). And in Europe supposed financial rules were twisted and mitigated and ignored to allow for the expansion of the Eurozone, with a trade-off between development for the peripheral economies and competitive advantage for the major economies (especially Germany. It's not anti-German or anti-European to point to the obvious disadvantages for what is a massive export economy of having the strongest currency within a trading group and the advantages for that economy of a single currency).

The point is that European leaders, EU economists, banks, accountants, the ECB, the IMF, were positively triumphalist up to the mid-2000s. George Osborne as shadow Chancellor made a now notorious speech adversely comparing the UK's supposedly over regulated financial sector to that of Ireland, and saying that a small country, Ireland, was illuminating the path for all in the future.

The EU response to the crisis hasn't been to bailout 'ailing economies'. It's been to protect risk taking financial institutions from the adverse consequences of risk. A vastly disproportionate harm falling upon the borrowers (sure, there are internal problems in Greece, largely of the making of the political and professional classes. The sorts of people who have already got their money out of the country, before what are still long overdue emergency measures could stop them doing so).

What may yet happen are emergency EU payments to stop the very basic infrastructure in Greece collapsing, to prevent a total collapse of the healthcare system. That's not motivated by solidarity - it's driven by fear. Who knows - maybe at some stage EU peacekeeping troops will be deployed in Greece? It doesn't say much for the leadership and economic / political consensus in the EU through the 2000s that Greece is now a failing / failed state, and that the fear is of on the one hand 'contagion', on the other of mass violence.

If someone can convincingly show me that the above is mistaken I will read them with close attention. Being pro- or anti-EU is stale and irrelevant, at least in the usual way it's discussed (IMO).

and all I would like to add to this quite excellent post is that at every turn, the people making the decisions find ways for banks to keep making profits from other peoples money, at tax payers expense.

[MrGongGong]

ONe question I always have in this
is whether economic expediency should always be the thing that drives decision making and alliances ?

There are some of us who think that there are more important things in the long term , and we , as one of the wealthiest nations on the planet, might be better off with a little less and more equitable distribution

[scottycelt]

I have never denied that mistakes, some serious, have been made iin the creation and running of the Euro ... that is obvious for all to see, and I acknowledge some of John Skelton's points. On a personal level (and in common with many others) I lost money in the financial crash I could ill-afford to lose. It wasn't my fault except I was stupid enough to invest in a now infamous mortgage bank. Stupid enough in hindsight, of course. It didn't seem particularly stupid at the time, honestly.

So I totally understand the sense of unfairness and injustice in all of this. As usual it is the innocent who will suffer. I wonder what sort of life Fred Goodwin is currently enjoying? A damn sight better than the poor Greeks and the huge majority of the rest of us, I bet!

However, we are where we are ... surely the real question now is what to do about it! The first essential step was to re-capitalise the banks themselves, however much that stuck in the craw of fair-minded folk. The alternative (letting then sink) doesn't really bear thinking about ... and if that was allowed to happen the innocent would have suffered very much more and there would have been very, very many more of them suffering now. So the politicians and governments around the globe did what they had to do, and save the system, at least temporarily.

The view of many is that the Greek people are likely to be hit even more by a Euro exit and this could ultimately leave a devastating effect on other countries in its wake. I share that view, and therefore hope that the Greeks don't turn to either political extreme out of sheer desperation and exaperation with their current leaders.

I do not think that pointing out the huge success of the EU (as distinct from the current Euro mess) is stale and irrelevant, especially as the EU is often blamed by some in the UK for matters outside its direct responsibility and control. The EU has its operational faults for sure ... it consists of human beings, for goodness sake ... but its ethos of a free and democratic coming-together of like-minded, medium-sized and smaller states in order to have some real influence in world affairs, and more security for all its peoples, remains a noble and worthwhile aspiration, imv. Away from the UK tabloid press and local tap-room bores, Its achievements in helping to create a politically-stable and economically powerful Europe are already beyond any reasonable dispute, I would have thought.

In short, what I am really saying is that there is little point in throwing out this lovely, healthy and growing baby along with the filthy bathwater ..

But they didn't take risk properly into account; whereas in the reckoning the emphasis is continually upon protecting them from the consequences of that failure to take risk into account. That can't simply be described as banks going speculatively crazy and needing to get back to their proper functions. Economic theory and practice of the past thirty or so years has emphasised at a personal level wage restraint / suppression, while relying on a model of yearly growth in consumer spending and of property ownership (with the planned depletion of public housing and the consequent stratospheric rises in property 'values' and mortgage commitments). And in Europe supposed financial rules were twisted and mitigated and ignored to allow for the expansion of the Eurozone, with a trade-off between development for the peripheral economies and competitive advantage for the major economies (especially Germany. It's not anti-German or anti-European to point to the obvious disadvantages for what is a massive export economy of having the strongest currency within a trading group and the advantages for that economy of a single currency).

The point is that European leaders, EU economists, banks, accountants, the ECB, the IMF, were positively triumphalist up to the mid-2000s. George Osborne as shadow Chancellor made a now notorious speech adversely comparing the UK's supposedly over regulated financial sector to that of Ireland, and saying that a small country, Ireland, was illuminating the path for all in the future.

The EU response to the crisis hasn't been to bailout 'ailing economies'. It's been to protect risk taking financial institutions from the adverse consequences of risk. A vastly disproportionate harm falling upon the borrowers (sure, there are internal problems in Greece, largely of the making of the political and professional classes. The sorts of people who have already got their money out of the country, before what are still long overdue emergency measures could stop them doing so).

What may yet happen are emergency EU payments to stop the very basic infrastructure in Greece collapsing, to prevent a total collapse of the healthcare system. That's not motivated by solidarity - it's driven by fear. Who knows - maybe at some stage EU peacekeeping troops will be deployed in Greece? It doesn't say much for the leadership and economic / political consensus in the EU through the 2000s that Greece is now a failing / failed state, and that the fear is of on the one hand 'contagion', on the other of mass violence.

If someone can convincingly show me that the above is mistaken I will read them with close attention. Being pro- or anti-EU is stale and irrelevant, at least in the usual way it's discussed (IMO).

[Lateralthinking1]

?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog...ne-hiv-malaria

I agree, John, with many of your excellent points. But that is the nearest to tabloid newspaper sensationalism I have ever read in The Guardian. If just fifty of the supporters at Euro 2012 had decided instead to order free needles for intravenous drug users from London and distributed them in Greece, the first of those problems could have been substantially alleviated and even prevented.

Elsewhere, much has been made of one unfortunate individual's leap from a window to death (what about all of the austerity triggered suicides in the UK?) and, last night on TV, a couple in "serious difficulties" with their mortgage. Both are still employed. His monthly salary has dropped by 40% to 900 E, she hasn't been paid for one month and their mortgage is 700 E a month.

My reaction wasn't "how terrible". It was "if only I were in that fortunate position". Many here would feel the same. Neither appeared seriously alarmed. There was even the hint of a smirk from her as if to say that she knew that they were over-stating it. If that is the worse case the BBC could find, that's pathetic. I now feel that we are being hoodwinked by many, if not all.

Perhaps it suits our Governments to paint the situation as dire elsewhere to divert attention from internal hardship and suffering.

Would I choose for the future the preferred policies of Greece or Germany? Greece. The public utilities, fantastic rights for working people and pensioners, etc. Yes, of course. Would I be worried as a Greek that I was about to lose many of those privileges? Yes. Would I think it wrong that the Greek Government, and hence voters, were being dictated to by the EU? Yes without a doubt.

But would I also recognise that Germany had a point? Yes. Would I accept that EU subsidies had often been the reason for my privileges? Yes. Would I think therefore that my Government should be initiating realistic cuts at a renegotiated steady pace to bring my country more into line with other countries, including Britain? Certainly if it wishes to remain in the Euro and the EU.

If it doesn't feel so inclined, I'd think it should leave. That would be my decision in the polling booth. I wouldn't feel comfortable with the reneging but I wouldn't see it as my fault. But not half in and half out of the door. That is just not at all credible or acceptable. They do seem to want to have their cake and eat it. Oddly, that policy is in sync with the clout of multinationals.

[MrGongGong]

Linguistic Congruence within the European Union

1. Due to its widespread use on the so-called 'Information Superhighway', and so that growing anti-European sentiments in Britain may be reassured about the importance of Britain's role in the European Union, the European Parliament has taken the unprecedented step of selecting one language - English - to become the preferred common language of the European Union.

2. In order to expedite this process and to speed congruence, the European Parliament has commissioned a feasability study of ways in which communications between departments of member governments can be made more effective. Its main recommendations are summarised below.

3. European officials have often pointed out that English spelling is unnecessarily complicated and illogical - for example, the different sounds of cough, plough and rough, or heard and beard. There is a clear need for a phased programme of changes to eliminate these anomalies. The programme would, of course, require administration by a committee whose members would be supplied by participating nations.

4. During the first year of implementation, it is envisaged that the soft "c" will be replaced by the more phonetically correct letter "s". This will sertainly be resieved favourably by sivil servants in many European sities, and will insidentally render the "i" before "e" exsept after "c" rule unnesessary. The logical replasement of the hard "c" by the letter "k" will follow, due to the similarity in pronunsiation. This konkomitant step will, insidentally, not only klear up konfusion in the minds of klerikal workers, but also klarify word prosessing sinse it kompletely removes the need for one of the letters on the keyboard.

5. The sekond stage will see the digraph "ph" written as "f". In addition to the fonetik logik of this move, words such as "fotograf" will be twenty per sent shorter.

6. The third fase will involve the removal of double letters in words. In many instanses, double leters do not afekt the aktual pronunsiation of a word. They are, however, a comon deterent to akurate speling.

7. The fourth element will be the elimination of silent "e"s from the languag. Thes ar often stal reliks of past spelings. They do litl to enhans writen English and it is antisipated that they kould be droped with eas.

8. By this point, the Komision antisipats that publik akseptans of the changes will be at a high level. It wil thus be posibl to promot som other, smaler, but stil posibly kontentious, changes. For exampl, the unesesary "o" kan be droped from words kontaining the "ou" digraf. A similar proses kuld then be aplid to other vowel and konsonant kombinashuns.

9. However, no konseshun wuld yet hav ben mad to Uropean sensibilitis. To tak kar of som of the komon difikultis enkountered by non-nativ spekers, it wuld be sensibl for the "th" digraf to be replased by "z". Ze funkshun of ze "w" kan zen be taken by ze letter "v", vich is, of kors, half a "w" in any kas.

10. Zis proses vil kontinu, in a kumulativ fashun. Eventuli English vil be ze komon languag ov ze Komuniti, vich vil no longer be merly an ekonomik sifer, but a kominashun ov fre pepls. Ve shal kontinu to red and rit as zo nuzing has hapend. Evrivun vil no vot ze uzer sitizens ar saying and komunkashun vil be mutch ezier. Ze Komuniti vil hav achevd its objektivs ov congrewents and ze drems ov ze pepls of Urop vil finali hav kum tru. It is hopd zat zes signifikant konseshuns vil finaly reashor ze "Uroskeptiks"!

(from CEC newsgroup ......... Canadian Electroacoustic Community)

[Budapest]

.

I don't think anyone here has any need to argue that the EU has been an incalculable benefit as regards the economic security and standard of living of most Europeans. These are simple facts ... more wealth and available health care for the average citizen and more co-operation between the member countries, unlike the comparatively recent past which saw millions slaughtered due to petty national rivalries. That's precisely why most still outside the EU are so desperately keen to join, and no member national government, including that of populist bandwagon eurosceptics like David Cameron and George Osborne, is advising its people to quit. In fact, quite the opposite, as they constantly tell us (if somewhat reluctantly) how vital the EU is to the UK's economic prospects!

scottycelt, in my humble opinion the above is a very good take on things.

John I mention including suicide figures with financial reports for the obvious reason that the figures never show the human reality of all these numbers.

A simple question and two simple points.

Question. If the EU and the eurozone is run for the benefit of the peopl and not the banks, why won't the ECB lend direct to the spanish Italian and Greek governments at the same rates that they lend to banks?

(Subsidiary question.....who controls the credit agencies and the billions they create for their friends in the banks?)

Point. We are still involved in (economic ) wars. We just don't care to fight them inside European borders these days.

The banking/financial stuff is core to what the EU does and is. I just wish it wasn't...maybe then we could have an EU we can trust.

The EU won't give direct low interest loans to EU governments that are in trouble because those EU governments were dumb enough to borrow large sums of money on the open markets - we get back to hiked-up interest rates and Wall Street: it's money down the toilet; it's Alice in Wonderland stuff.

The credit agencies are controlled by Wall Street, in much the same way that Father Christmas controls the reindeer that pull his sleigh.

Talking of which, Iceland is a good example of just what a load of rollocks the western financial system is. It's a complicated one to explain, but basically the Icelandic banks were totally wrapped up with the likes of Lehman Brothers/Wall Street. It was all about huge amounts of money put into what were junk investments. When it all went belly-up in 2008 and 2009 the Icelanders very sensibly said: screw this, and promptly declared themselves bankrupt and defaulted on the debts that their out-of-control and corrupt banking industry had run up.

Was it the end of the world for Iceland..? No. They had a couple of hard years following their default but are now rapidly getting back on their feet again.

What people perhaps need to understand about the present global economic crisis in the west is that it is almost entirely fueled by greedy, stupid and unregulated people in the banking sector.

[Budapest]

If you look at Spain you'll see that German banks have the greatest exposure, followed by France, then the UK, then US banks.

Obviously the system is interconnected, but how is austerity being imposed or enforced on Greece by 'Wall Street' against EU opposition? How is there some divide neo-liberal v EU or IMF v ECB? Why do you think the suicide rate in Greece is the fault of Wall Street and not the EU?

John, my apologies for not yet addressing your above point; so here we go: when you talk about 'German banks' or 'UK banks' or 'French banks' etc, who do you think owns these banks? You pose it as though they are owned by German, British or French interests, etc. They are not. Just about all of them are controlled by American corporations (Wall Street), and the ones who aren't controlled by American corps are increasingly controlled by Chinese companies.

Next time you go down to Barclays Bank they'll probably give you a free pair of chopsticks.