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_w_

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Posts posted by _w_

  1. I'm not sure if this is simply a budgetary and political solution. Italy, Greece, Spain need a weaker currency, whilst Germany is gaining a big advantage from having a weaker currency than it would have had if it still used the Deutsche Mark. This imbalance in the Euro is unlikely to go away soon, its a flawed union. I'm not sure how budget caps will enable the weaker countries to become carbon copy Germanies, which is what would be needed for the Euro to work.

    Basically, at some point the Euro will have to break up/shrink or split.

    No, simplistically the issue is that the problem countries have raised their wages 10 to 30% more than Germany in the last ten years. And accumulated tons of debts in the process. They can fix this if:

    - The excess inflating is stopped in the problem countries. It will if they are fiscally disciplined and put their banks on a tight leash. The euro will become sustainable.

    - Over the next few years they inflate less than Germany to achieve the necessary rebalancing. This will happen automaticaslly as they go into a recession (as a result of the clos01ure of BMW dealerships and estate agents among others).

    The southern countries have no genetic predisposition to fiscal incontinence and inflation. They have a bitter pill to swallow in the short term but nothing should stop them from being able to follow the German model if they wish to.

  2. :lol:

    Well, it's good to see Merkel taking charge, someone needs to make a plan and follow through. For obvious historic reasons it's unfortunate that it's Germany but hey ho.

    I just hope they don't completely rule out measures from the ECB.. it could be their only hope.

    The ECB announced a ton of measures yesterday, just not the kind the banks where hoping for. It did much more than enough.

  3. As far as I can make out the past 24 hours has been a brilliant smoke and mirrors act.

    I went to bed last night with the global economy on the edge of a cliff if the Euro mess was not sorted out.

    This morning I woke up with all the guff about the UK being a spoil sport but no one mentioning that the Euro mess has not been sorted out.

    How long will it be until people figure this out?

    I think you may be falling for the self serving discourse put forward by the banks and their governments.

    They wanted a 'confidence building' short term inflation bazooka by Christmas and didn't get it. It is a disappointment for them but it had absolutely nothing to do with solving Europe's problem and would surely have made it worse for Europe in the long run.

    Greece aside (it needs debt writedowns and then to move in line with the rest), the problem with Europe is that some countries have let inflation and deficits loose more than others and are uncompetitive as a result. The solution is to rebalancce competitiveness levels. It can be done with a little inflation in the EU overall, and some serious deflation in the deficit countries. Or, as the banks and inflation VIs would wish, with an enormous dose of inflation that would also happen to preserve an oversized FIRE economy for a while longer at the expense of more productive and wealth creating activities. If anything, the bazooka solution would probably create more inflation in the southern than the northern countries, aggravating the situation even more.

    The solution was budgetary and political and this is what Europe, in appearance at least, achieved last night.

    Predictably some people call what happened a failure but they never had fixing Europe in mind in the first place.

  4. True, however you do feel for the Irish.

    Not much, races to the bottom end up hurting everyone and the Irish knew what they were doing.

    Although I'm no fan of Cameron along with Brown before him this might be the one thing that people will thank him for in the future.

    I think he will be applauded for a couple of years. Europe will have a recession as it cuts its deadwood while the UK will likely experience inflation induced growth based on real estate and finance. In five years time Europe will be lean and mean while we are on our knees and ready to take it where the sun doesn't shine. It will be blamed on someone else by then though.

  5. No it hasn't. The current relationship between the UK and the EU does not involve us sharing a currency, us sharing taxation, us sharing armed forces, etc, etc. We have lost some sovereignty over the years, but have kept the key features of a sovereign nation state. But France, for example, has open borders (Schengen) no currency, now fiscal union and soon no doubt will merge its armed forces into a Euroarmy.

    The French political class is giving up France's sovereignty. Berlusconi has handed control of Italy to an EU designated technocrat. These are stunning developments. These are proud people, proud nations, they have as strong an identity as the UK. It just betrays the lack of belief in the national interest by the political class. Today's politicians do not act in their citizens best interest, they don't even believe in national citizenry anymore. And Cameron, and Blair before him, are exactly the same. Insular interests in the UK have much more power here than nationalists have on the continent, and they are the traditional tory supporters. It is giving our politicians a harder time but in truth they share the same beliefs as their continental colleagues. Whatever assurances and promises they give us they are globalists at heart. You cannot doubt it I'm sure, if you just look at what they do rather than listen to what they say.

  6. I find it a bit offensive when people say that someone else 'must' do something when that person really means that she or he wants it to be done.

    I think the reality is that once Europe is united they don't really need the UK anymore.That's the pragmatic approach at the political level IMO, even if some people driven by their ideology might want the UK to join.

  7. we're the ones who haven't just surrendered our sovereignty to German technocrats you numpties!

    If you think that then you've missed a lot of what's happened since Maggie came to power. Most of our laws today originate in Brussels, another large and very significant share comes from UN sponsored international treaties. Beware of the BS we are fed on a daily basis, the reality you seem to be basing your judgement on is a myth. The UK has already lost its soverignty.

  8. Cameron has got some balls. Its a gamble for sure but at least he's put his **** on a block and not submissively gone along with the whole Euro sham.

    There's nothing dear Dave wouldn't do for his oligarch mates.

    Unfortunately he's put _our_ heads on the block. The UK governments' eructations of the last few weeks designed to undermine Europe will have to be paid for. I've had conversations with people from France recently and they were mightily pissed off. I was really surprised by the virulence and anger, even by French standards. I think there will be payback and we'll be the ones paying.

    Edit to add: the anger had nothing to do with last night, that was already known, but all to do with the government's behaviour over the last few weeks.

  9. Irrelevant? Apart from being the holiday home of the global rich, it has the Commonwealth and the English speaking nations. Plenty of nations aren't in the EU and they survive and even prosper.

    Europe has been divided for so long it is hard to see how powerful it would become if united. It's the biggest economy in the world, As for the rich City boys, I can't help but think of Hong Kong and China, I don't think Europe would wait very long before taking all that business home via taxation and regulations and I can't see what the UK could do about it. Since Europe's inception the UK's power has been based on divisions within Europe, lots of them crafted and maintained by the UK itself.

  10. You think the Eurozone will do enough to prevent any acrimony between the members? I don't.

    Where have you been the last few months? :)

    You don't seem to appreciate what these guys have done recently and what last night's agreement means. Two countries agreed to give up their soverignty in full for example and now all 26 of them are agreeing to the same. What more do you want?

  11. Thinking about it I've just realised one thing:

    This is the end on an epic fail of the UK's age old policy of keeping Europe divided.

    Whatever that means.

    <Edit to add: I think it means the UK is going to be increasingly irrelevant on the world stage and more vulnerable to foreign influence. The City is probably toast.>

  12. http://www.youtube.c...h?v=jis-K8wmwhs

    An excellent presentation by this man. Very well thought out and many interesting statistics.

    Some of the many statistics.. natural gas costs 1/2th nuclear right now. And the combined cycle plants are up to 60% efficiency.

    For city buses that are running on gas, the costs are 1/3rd the cost of oil.

    Also with American natural gas costing 1/2th the European level, chemical manufacturers are heading back to the US. As natural gas is their main feedstock.

    In the US the EPA just announced that fracking was a cause of water pollution. It could have some consequences.

  13. Well if we stop paying people to do nothing we might actually get some productive activity in our economy

    :blink:

    Yep, and send all these lazy housewives who do nothing all day to work to make the country more productive. The nation just can't carry all this deadweight anymore, overpaid husbands will then be able to work for less and be more competitive. Too many bloodsuckers expecting other to work for them.

    :blink:

  14. The discovery of Keplar-B means that ratings agency S&P has decided to issue a downgrade warning on the planet Earth.

    Joking aside, the BBC are now reporting that S&P are about to put all 27 EU countries, including dear old Blightly, on a downgrade warning.

    Is S&P just going from country to country?

    Earth will be downgraded and if that fails to provoke the desired panic I am told that Betelgeuse is next on the list.

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