Eu

[jetpilot]

Seems there is a storm brewing in the Eu at the moment and good on Cameron for standing firm, however, could someone who actually knows tell me of what benefit we have of being in the EU, is it just trade deals etc?

There was a great quote on Sky News this morning, we dont want to be part of a United States of Germany with a French poodle at their feet! :Laugh

P.s This is a genuine question of our reasons for entering the Eu.

[Will66]

As with so many things, it started out with the best of intentions but was corrupted by bureaucracy and greed and a lack of decent auditing.

The EU started out as a European Economic Community, basically a trade agreement that gave member states advantages when trading with each other.  No import duty, less restriction, that sort of thing.  Not a bad idea really, reduces the cost of importing and exporting, promotes trade, nice little earner and keeps people within the community on your side diplomatically.

The European Union was an extension of that principle but created further institution such as the European Parliament, European Court, European Commission and hundreds of other organisations within it.  Some do good things, others tend to get mired in bureaucracy and try and dictate the shape of bananas.  Unfortunately the good work is not what makes headlines and the bad stuff becomes fodder for the media.  Especially when the budget for the EU is 120 billion euros a year.

The Euro, the single currency is essentially a method of further promoting free trade between member states.  If you buy and sell stuff between two countries using the Euro, you don\'t incur costs associated with changing money.  However it means that all those countries within the zone have to be in economically good shape, low national debt, effective deficit management, that sort of thing.  Accordingly when the Euro was being set up , the countries wishing to join it had to meet criteria regarding aspects of their economy to join.  At the time I think the UK felt it couldn\'t meet the criteria without impinging on it\'s plans at the time so it didn\'t join.  However a lot of countries got quite creative with their accounting and borrowed heavily to meet the criteria.  However, and this is the bit that gets me annoyed, finance is based on trust, people lend money on the basis that they trust that you can pay it back.  Obviously you can convince them that it\'s a good idea and if you\'re entirely honest about your ability to pay it back then it\'s fine.  If you\'re a bit "creative" then you bring the system into question and if the dishonesty is sufficient then the whole shooting match comes crashing down in a big nasty mess.

For instance, if you want a mortgage to buy a house you go to a bank and ask them for the money, they look at how much money you\'ve got and the amount you earn and then lend you an amount on the basis that on the balance of things you\'ll be able to pay the loan back with the appropriate amount of interest and if you can\'t then they can sell the house and get the money back.  

When was economy is healthy it was easy to borrow money and people borrowed money to lend more money to more people and while it worked everyone was happy.  However, someone clever but unimaginative looked at the financial situation of lots of people who had borrowed lots of money from lots of banks and said "Hang on, you\'ve lent all this money to all these people who may struggle to pay all this back.  We\'re not going to lend you any more money and we\'d like the money we lent you back now please!"  Notice the word "may" no one was struggling to pay money back, they were just borrowing more money to do it, but whilst people trusted that they could pay back the money they were borrowing then it was fine.  The idea that they couldn\'t pay it back had not been considered by those lending the money until this point and that\'s where the whole system went to hell.  Everybody demanded their money back until someone went "We just can\'t do it." that created a big hole and all of a sudden the whole thing came crashing down and all that was left was the collateral for the loans, mostly houses, however because no one was lending any money no one could afford to buy the houses and their value dropped.  This happened on a global scale and places that relied on borrowing money to run their public sector couldn\'t do it, Greece for instance.  Obviously if you\'ve been borrowing lots of money to run your public sector then you owe lots of money to lots of people and being unable to pay that creates a huge problems.  If you\'re using the same currency as a lot of other countries then you\'re not only bringing your own economy into to trouble, it\'s all the other countries that use the same currency into trouble because no one thinks it\'s any use.  This creates loads of problems, most of which you can see in Greece, a lot of which are self-inflicted, a lax attitude to tax collection, enormous public sector and unfunded government debt have meant they\'re in trouble, however them being a member of the Euro means that they\'ve created problems across the whole Eurozone.  Countries like Italy, Spain, Ireland and Portugal are in similar trouble but they\'re working better at getting out of trouble than Greece, which just went on strike.

The thing that really grinds my gears on this issue is that if someone had taken a look at this initially and been a bit more realistic in terms of who they lent the money to in the first place that none of this would have happened.  Also, if we hadn\'t become reliant on shovelling money around the financial markets for the basis of our economy then we wouldn\'t be in such trouble anyway!  Notice that the countries that aren\'t in trouble at the moment are the ones where their percentage GDP based on manufacturing is higher.  Basically what they make some of their money from has an intrinsic value and regardless of world economic situation, someone is always going to pay some money for something.  The other good thing about making stuff or digging it out of the ground is that it employs lots of people, they all pay tax and all of a sudden your economy is healthy and you\'re not having to borrow loads of money to support your public services.

[Will66]

I read that and realised that I really didn\'t answer your question well.  However the Sky quote about the United States of Germany with a French poodle at your feet, is reference to the fact that all the countries in the Euro-zone are basically trading on the strength of the French and German economies.  

Unfortunately, like Communism, the European Union was a good idea in principle but, like communism was mired by the inherent flaws in the human animal, insofar as we want to be more successful than those around us because on a basic hunter gatherer level when we lived in caves and hunted massive hairy elephants, being the most successful was how you got laid more often and therefore had more children and perpetuated your genes.





Somehow I\'ve managed to condense complex economic theory into the desire to get more girls to play with your ding dong.  I\'ve probably missed something somewhere but there you go!

[jetpilot]

I read that and realised that I really didn\'t answer your question well.  However the Sky quote about the United States of Germany with a French poodle at your feet, is reference to the fact that all the countries in the Euro-zone are basically trading on the strength of the French and German economies.  

Unfortunately, like Communism, the European Union was a good idea in principle but, like communism was mired by the inherent flaws in the human animal, insofar as we want to be more successful than those around us because on a basic hunter gatherer level when we lived in caves and hunted massive hairy elephants, being the most successful was how you got laid more often and therefore had more children and perpetuated your genes.





Somehow I\'ve managed to condense complex economic theory into the desire to get more girls to play with your ding dong.  I\'ve probably missed something somewhere but there you go!

I think the comment was more based on the German economy with the French being their b*tch and going along with everything Germany says and wants in the vein hope they get thrown the scraps (i.e benefit from cosying up to ze germans)!

However, thanks for the info Will, it sort of makes sense now!

[TRIND-FD]

There is no benefit to being In the eu.  We just get taxed more so politicians can toss it off at our expense.

[wolfie1]

will66 bet your glad your browser didnt just crash after typing all that out!

[Will66]

Will66 = Mac User, browser rarely crashes!  Although I did copy it prior to hitting post.

[Skifledanabit]

Will, you are far to clever for your own good...

I\'m glad Cameron is telling the eurozone to back off, if we hadn\'t told them to back off before, we would most likely be in the same place as Greece is now. So why should we have to join a currency which has proved that it doesn\'t work, now, at its lowest point. Surely, if we did agree to what the germans and french want us to do, they would just bleed our currency dry to prop up the failing Euro countries?

[jetpilot]

I am up to speed on his recent veto. He hasnt vetoed the Euro or being part of it, he has vetoed the bail out package and more so the sanctions ze Germans are trying to put on financial sectors and seeing as that is now our biggest industry he stood firm to them as it may put that at risk!

So, we are now on the "outside" of Europe, some say its a good thing, some say its a bad thing.

Concerns for me now are, we wont be part of the main table when decisions are made, but i presume still paying into the pot?

Will - I get what your saying about a single currency and costs involved with transferring money, but we never had the Euro so still have those costs??

I have seen documentaries where economists warned a single currency would not work, it was ignored and now we are seeing the result that it isnt working? So what is the future of the Euro, they are already giving odds for who will leave the Euro first! And apparently ze Germans are already printing Deutchmarks!

[iaint]

So, we are now on the "outside" of Europe, some say its a good thing, some say its a bad thing.

I\'d be happy to effectively end the political ties to the EU if we can maintain the trade aspects.  

We do not need the European Parliament and the many job-for-life bureaucrats that are entirely unaccountable and unelected.  I used to think that the UKIP view of dropping the EU would be detrimental to our economy but trade will survive and possibly strengthen.

Have a look at some of Nigel Farage\'s lambasting of the unelected EU people on YouTube... it\'s bombastic politicking at it\'s finest!

[Will66]

Will - I get what your saying about a single currency and costs involved with transferring money, but we never had the Euro so still have those costs??

Yep and I reckon that we shouldn\'t be bailing out the Eurozone because they couldn\'t keep an eye on what each other was doing effectively.

[jetpilot]

Interesting today that the report is out on the collapse of RBS, the board were obviously blamed, the FSA also take some responsibility and the Labour governments, "light touch with regards to its approach to regulation".

[Skifledanabit]

What REALLY annoys me about the whole situation is that everyone involved and reporting it all uses so much jargon, people that aren\'t directly involved/clued up on it just have no idea what\'s going on. In fact I think that\'s why the majority of people are so annoyed at it all.

[lockwood77]

You have to ask why Dozy Dave used his veto right at the start of negotiations - why couldn\'t he hang around and use the veto when everything came out in the wash and he knew what was actually on the table? Now we have no part in the discussions at all.

He\'s just pandering to the neo-fascist jingoism from the idiot right-wingers in his party calling for a referendum that he knows will blow both the coalition and his party apart. It has nothing to do with a sensible approach to getting the best out of Europe for the UK - how can we get anything out of it if we\'re not at the negotiating table? The man is an idiot.

And don\'t even get me started on Clegg, who obviously hates the fact the veto has been used but is far too spineless and desperate to cling on to the power he perceives the lying Liberals to have (seriously, does anyone still believe they have ANY influence?). If he had any principles at all he would pull his party out of the coalition immediately and we\'d have a chance of getting the asset-stripping xenophobic Tory scum out.

[jetpilot]

It has nothing to do with a sensible approach to getting the best out of Europe for the UK - how can we get anything out of it if we\'re not at the negotiating table? The man is an idiot

As far as i can see there is no good to being in Europe, maybe you could let me know what is beneficial...

Perhaps you mean large train contracts going to Siemens instead of a UK firm Bomardier? Very helpful to UK business?

We will still be at the table for the discussions by the way...

Sorry to say you sound like a typical Labourite bashing the Tories without any knowledge of the situation, just spouting your unfounded biased views!