Greece: 48 Hours to the End

[Oneyed]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94UcyJnRcGU

Oneyed

[mrswdk]

It's simple. Pay in cash or don't pay.

[2dimes]

It's simple. Pay in cash or don't pay.

I like your concept but, do you know A single person who has paid cash for a car? Never mind saving up for a house. A pretty regular family house here is Half a million dollars. "Let me just get my cheque book here..."

[2dimes]

This place is not for sensible factual information. Stop it right now.

I am pretty impressed you know someone who has ever paid cash for a house. I wanted to but could never save enough for a real good stereo or an airplane.

[mrswdk]

What if landlords were treated as the negative-sum contributors to society that they are? How much would the market for your house shrink? It wouldn't be 500k, it might be 60k.

lawl. Yeah, and where are you going to live while you save up that 60k?

Back in the 19th century, house prices in the UK were all incredibly low by today's standards (and were stable at this very low level). 90% of people at that time rented from private landlords. I imagine the same would be true across most or all developed countries at that time.

Now something like 65% of Brits own the house they live in. The rise of mortgage-lending has coincided with greatly increased home ownership and reduced the market presence of landlords, even as house prices have increased. This pattern can also be observed across most developed countries. What say you to that, dragon man?

[waauw]

What if landlords were treated as the negative-sum contributors to society that they are? How much would the market for your house shrink? It wouldn't be 500k, it might be 60k.

lawl. Yeah, and where are you going to live while you save up that 60k?

(hint: it's owned by one of those people you just called a negative-sum contributor)

Not to mention, the market for about 90% of all houses would collapse to 0, seeing as very few people have the money to buy a house with cash outright.

Not to mention those small independent business owners who own a building with a store downstairs but excess space upstairs. They're already struggling to survive, you'd be strangling them even more.

[mrswdk]

[warmonger1981]

No comments on Nigel's speech? Nothing about the banks getting the bailout money instead of Greece. Obviously you people troll more than conversation.

[waauw]

No comments on Nigel's speech? Nothing about the banks getting the bailout money instead of Greece. Obviously you people troll more than conversation.

I dont know what speech you're talking about, but it doesn't really matter. Most european newspapers barely pay any attention to what British politicians say. They've been niggling the rest of the continent for so long, we've grown a deaf ear to their whining.

France and Germany >>>>>>> UK

[saxitoxin]

No comments on Nigel's speech? Nothing about the banks getting the bailout money instead of Greece. Obviously you people troll more than conversation.

I dont know what speech you're talking about, but it doesn't really matter. Most european newspapers barely pay any attention to what British politicians say. They've been niggling the rest of the continent for so long, we've grown a deaf ear to their whining.

France and Germany >>>>>>> UK

[warmonger1981]

Thank you Saxi for doing that. Now would anyone like to comment on anything that man just said? I think it shows exactly why the euro won't work. It's a scam from the start.

[mrswdk]

He doesn't really say anything. I lol'd at 'there is a new Berlin Wall, and it's called the Euro' though.

[waauw]

Thank you Saxi for doing that. Now would anyone like to comment on anything that man just said? I think it shows exactly why the euro won't work. It's a scam from the start.

It's not a scam at all, the european parliament is just extremely torn into camps. The entire liberal fraction for instance does desire a fiscal union as well, which would be a valid working solution to eurozone problems. There is a difference between a scam and an incomplete project. Farage was also wrong that the cultural differences can't be reconciled. They've been reconciling differences from the beginning. It's not something instant it can't be gradual either.

I agree that the current system is unstable, but to think that this instability has no positive solutions is absolutely ridiculous. Mr. Defeatist Farage can keep his 'only solution is destruction' motto.

Of course the brits want the euro to implode, they can't handle the fact that they are no longer a political superpower on the continent.

[warmonger1981]

So you believe one universal economic system works for every culture? I would disagree. Do you believe central banks are good for a country? If so, how well has the Federal Reserve worked in keeping boom-bust cycles from happening? If the current system is unstable how did this happen? How do you feel about the banks getting the money instead of the Greeks? Sounds like a bailout that happened in 08 or 09 when not one American got a bailout but the banks did. The American got stuck with the bill.

[waauw]

So you believe one universal economic system works for every culture? I would disagree. Do you believe central banks are good for a country? If so, how well has the Federal Reserve worked in keeping boom-bust cycles from happening? If the current system is unstable how did this happen? How do you feel about the banks getting the money instead of the Greeks? Sounds like a bailout that happened in 08 or 09 when not one American got a bailout but the banks did. The American got stuck with the bill.

I believe that when people get used to economic/political systems they can(note I'm not saying they always will) change culturally as well. In the 19th century social security was very contrarian. Nowadays in Europe even the right wing can be classified as social-liberal. It became a habit of which people in the end did realize the advantages.
I think the same thing can happen to the eurozone. It probably already has to some degree, but it takes time.

As for the rest of your questions, they are not unique to the euro so I don't think they are relevant to the current discussion. You seem to be talking about contemporary capitalism in general instead of the eurozone in specific. You're divering away from the original point of discussion.

[WingCmdr Ginkapo]

Of course the brits want the euro to implode, they can't handle the fact that they are no longer a political superpower on the continent.

Nigel is the leader of a far right group in Britain, his views are not representative. I would say that the longer this goes on, the happier I am that we kept Sterling and didnt adopt the Euro.

[waauw]

Of course the brits want the euro to implode, they can't handle the fact that they are no longer a political superpower on the continent.

Nigel is the leader of a far right group in Britain, his views are not representative. I would say that the longer this goes on, the happier I am that we kept Sterling and didnt adopt the Euro.

It's not just Nigel. Brits have been contradicting the rest of the continent ever since you joined. You have completely different a vision from almost everybody else.
Now that's fine, but to continental europe that's like wanting to move forward with a british weight hanging at your foot.
There is a reason why the UK is the only country voting on whether or not to leave the EU.

[mrswdk]

Of course the brits want the euro to implode, they can't handle the fact that they are no longer a political superpower on the continent.

Nigel is the leader of a far right group in Britain, his views are not representative. I would say that the longer this goes on, the happier I am that we kept Sterling and didnt adopt the Euro.

It's not just Nigel. Brits have been contradicting the rest of the continent ever since you joined. You have completely different vision from almost everybody else.
Seriously, if you make a count of how many times British opinion was opposite of German and French opinion you'd mount up to a very large tally.
There is a reason why the UK is the only country voting on whether or not to leave the EU.

British conservative politicians do have a bit of a tendency to take extreme, isolationist stances, but my understanding was that the British government sees eye-to-eye with countries like the Netherlands, Germany and Poland on quite a few substantive issues, not just in terms of economics but also in terms of what the EU as an organization should be.

[WingCmdr Ginkapo]

Of course the brits want the euro to implode, they can't handle the fact that they are no longer a political superpower on the continent.

Nigel is the leader of a far right group in Britain, his views are not representative. I would say that the longer this goes on, the happier I am that we kept Sterling and didnt adopt the Euro.

It's not just Nigel. Brits have been contradicting the rest of the continent ever since you joined. You have completely different a vision from almost everybody else.
Now that's fine, but to continental europe that's like wanting to move forward with a british weight hanging at your foot.
There is a reason why the UK is the only country voting on whether or not to leave the EU.

Half true. You have to understand that there is no question that the vote will ever end with choosing to leave the EU. It is a move by the conservative party to pacify the far right of the country and gain votes at the election. Nothing more. It was a back up to gain some votes should Scotland have not delivered a massive vote switch from labour to SNP.

[waauw]

Of course the brits want the euro to implode, they can't handle the fact that they are no longer a political superpower on the continent.

Nigel is the leader of a far right group in Britain, his views are not representative. I would say that the longer this goes on, the happier I am that we kept Sterling and didnt adopt the Euro.

It's not just Nigel. Brits have been contradicting the rest of the continent ever since you joined. You have completely different vision from almost everybody else.
Seriously, if you make a count of how many times British opinion was opposite of German and French opinion you'd mount up to a very large tally.
There is a reason why the UK is the only country voting on whether or not to leave the EU.

British conservative politicians do have a bit of a tendency to take extreme, isolationist stances, but my understanding was that the British government sees eye-to-eye with countries like the Netherlands, Germany and Poland on quite a few substantive issues, not just in terms of economics but also in terms of what the EU as an organization should be.

I can't talk much about Poland, but as far as the Netherlands and Germany go the British don't resemble them at all. Both the Netherlands and Germany are among the founding members of the EU and both have always sought ever tighter cooperation, whilst the UK preferred to keep cooperation limited to what already was.

Germany is probably the UK's polar opposite within the EU.

http://www.economist.com/node/16163218

THE British are unfit to join the common market because they differ “profoundly” from continental Europeans, Charles de Gaulle declared in 1963. Britain is “insular, maritime, and linked by her exchanges, her markets and her supply routes to the most diverse and often the farthest-flung nations.” Britain trades, it does not farm, the French president grumbled. Let them in, and the club will become a vast “Atlantic community”, ripe for American domination. In short, Non.

After a good dinner, a surprising number of European Union officials and politicians will murmur that de Gaulle was right: Britain should never have joined. Many British Eurosceptics would endorse his description of their country. They have a point: Britain is different. As the new prime minister, David Cameron, holds his first meetings with France's Nicolas Sarkozy and Germany's Angela Merkel, it is worth pondering why.

When Britain joined the then EEC in 1973, it was a club designed to meet purely continental goals such as containing Germany's peaceful rise and modernising European farms. That template “poisoned the first years of British membership”, says one senior figure—think of Margaret Thatcher's battle to get her money back. Britain emerged from economic misery in the 1970s via a brutal political adjustment, as the then Mrs (now Lady) Thatcher sought to curb militant trade unions and roll back the state. That felt like a British, not a European achievement. When other European leaders then began talking of a “social Europe” to protect workers, it sounded awfully like a return to pre-Thatcher days. In contrast, France's post-war boom was a time of central planning, which cemented in place a certain faith in the state. In lots of countries voters now link joining the European project to emergence from dictatorship and economic isolation.

Historians describe the English (more than the British) as unusually individualist and market-minded since medieval times, working for wages and trading property. England has had a central system of common law for centuries. It industrialised early. It has not been occupied in a long while. All this matters.

In much of Europe people look to the EU as a higher authority able to rescue them from dysfunctional local rulers, notes one ambassador. Britain, he says, is one of the few countries whose voters assume domestic administration is superior to the EU's.

De Gaulle was also right that the British have a different view of America. Take the arguments for building an expensive EU satellite navigation system, Galileo. Europe depends on America's GPS system, it is said, so the Americans could veto an EU military mission. In much of Europe heads nod in agreement at this point. But the British struggle ever to imagine backing an EU military venture opposed by the Americans.

The British debate on Europe is also affected by a raucous popular press that lazily presents the EU as a nefarious plot to do the country down. National newspapers on the continent are overwhelmingly pro-establishment and therefore pro-EU. British newspapers may reflect a more Eurosceptic public opinion. But the savage competitiveness of their market also leads them into adopting more extreme positions.

The euro crisis exposes new differences. Britain decided to stand aloof from the bulk of the recent €750 billion ($950 billion) euro-zone defence fund. But Sweden and Poland felt they had enough at stake to contribute. A disintegrating euro frightens all those with life savings in that currency, including officials and ministers at EU meetings. They found it humiliating when President Barack Obama publicly urged EU leaders to shore up the currency. Outside the euro, Britons are more detached.

These are all reasons why the British are different. Why, though, is Britain unique? The Nordics are free-traders who joined late and believe their national standards to be higher than Europe's. Lots of east Europeans look to America for their security. Germany and Austria have their own Brussels-bashing tabloids. Sweden and Denmark both declined to join the euro.

The lure of the alternative

The difference is that, although many of the others dislike aspects of the EU, they feel they have no real alternative. On many fronts, the British think they do. If a common EU foreign policy fails, Britain is still on the UN Security Council. If the euro collapses, Britain has the pound. Should EU regulation get too burdensome, there is always the chance of opt-outs.

To de Gaulle's generation, the EU was a solution to the “German problem”, above all. Yet the post-war cry of “never again” resounds less in Britain. But it matters greatly that, almost uniquely in Europe, the second world war is a positive memory in Britain—and that Britain has not been invaded for centuries.

The danger for the British is that alternatives to full EU membership are themselves illusory. British Eurosceptics talk of a Swiss-style free-trade deal (though Britain would still have to apply EU rules that it could no longer influence). Similarly diehard advocates of EU integration dream of shunting Britain into an outer core, and building a more regulated inner core based on the euro. Such alternatives are illusory in part because, even if de Gaulle was right about Britain, he was wrong about Europe and how it would be changed by globalisation. To borrow his words, all EU countries are now linked by exchanges, markets and supply routes to diverse and far-flung places.

Europe will survive only if it acts more like a maritime power, its eyes fixed on growth and the far horizon. And Britain is needed to defend the free movement of people, goods, services and capital in the internal market. Walking away from the EU would not make either the club or its rules go away. In short, Britain and Europe are stuck with each other.

[mrswdk]

British conservative politicians do have a bit of a tendency to take extreme, isolationist stances, but my understanding was that the British government sees eye-to-eye with countries like the Netherlands, Germany and Poland on quite a few substantive issues, not just in terms of economics but also in terms of what the EU as an organization should be.

I can't talk much about Poland, but as far as the Netherlands and Germany go the British don't resemble them at all. Both the Netherlands and Germany are among the founding members of the EU and both have always sought ever tighter cooperation, whilst the UK preferred to keep cooperation limited to what already was.

I was mostly talking about those countries' attitudes towards economic policy, statism and so on, which are broadly similar. That said, the Dutch government has recently been fairly vocal in its opposition to 'ever closer union'. Maybe they used to enthusiastically support greater integration, but now their stance is much more similar to the UK's.

[waauw]

British conservative politicians do have a bit of a tendency to take extreme, isolationist stances, but my understanding was that the British government sees eye-to-eye with countries like the Netherlands, Germany and Poland on quite a few substantive issues, not just in terms of economics but also in terms of what the EU as an organization should be.

I can't talk much about Poland, but as far as the Netherlands and Germany go the British don't resemble them at all. Both the Netherlands and Germany are among the founding members of the EU and both have always sought ever tighter cooperation, whilst the UK preferred to keep cooperation limited to what already was.

I was mostly talking about those countries' attitudes towards economic policy, statism and so on, which are broadly similar. That said, the Dutch government has recently been fairly vocal in its opposition to 'ever closer union'. Maybe they used to enthusiastically support greater integration, but now their stance is much more similar to the UK's.

Yeah the whole Greece situation is having a negative effect.
The annoying thing is, more and more people don't want further integration but neither do they want to leave the euro, which poses a problem. Because either you do futher integrate or you abandon the euro, remaining in the middle is just searching for trouble.

Personally I don't mind a unified fiscal union, but then again my country has traditionally been among the most progressive ones.

[mrswdk]

British conservative politicians do have a bit of a tendency to take extreme, isolationist stances, but my understanding was that the British government sees eye-to-eye with countries like the Netherlands, Germany and Poland on quite a few substantive issues, not just in terms of economics but also in terms of what the EU as an organization should be.

I can't talk much about Poland, but as far as the Netherlands and Germany go the British don't resemble them at all. Both the Netherlands and Germany are among the founding members of the EU and both have always sought ever tighter cooperation, whilst the UK preferred to keep cooperation limited to what already was.

I was mostly talking about those countries' attitudes towards economic policy, statism and so on, which are broadly similar. That said, the Dutch government has recently been fairly vocal in its opposition to 'ever closer union'. Maybe they used to enthusiastically support greater integration, but now their stance is much more similar to the UK's.

Yeah the whole Greece situation is having a negative effect.
The annoying thing is, more and more people don't want further integration but neither do they want to leave the euro, which poses a problem. Because either you do futher integrate or you abandon the euro, remaining in the middle is just searching for trouble.

Personally I don't mind a unified fiscal union.

Well, the Eurozone and the EU are two different things. The Eurozone can pursue further fiscal integration (which it needs to) without the EU as a whole becoming more tightly knit.