Eurozone deal reached without UK

[Jimbuna]

It looks like the UK are about to become isolated in Europe...time to leave perhaps?

Look at the picture...I'd say Cameron is contemplating head butting Sarkozy:DL

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/57228000/jpg/_57228244_eufamilyphoto464in_reuters.jpg


PM David Cameron has effectively vetoed an EU-wide treaty change to tackle the eurozone crisis, saying it was not in the UK's interests.
Instead a new "accord" setting out tougher budget rules will be drawn up for the eurozone, which all EU states, except the UK, look set to join.
France's Nicolas Sarkozy said the UK PM had made "unacceptable" demands.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16104275

[Dread Knot]

Europe is fast degrading into a rout of individual interests and not a unity. Cameron I believe is acting on GB interests. Good on him for Dunkirking the hell out of there first.

[Jimbuna]

His dilemma was....he'd be damned at home if he gave away anymore sovereign powers and damned by his european peer group if he used the veto.

All things considered I believe he made the correct decision.

[Dread Knot]

I notice that the agreement such as it is, had little to say about the staggering mountains of debt and the prospect of zero growth in most of Europe.

Still, it may be enough to goose the markets a bit.

[STEED]

Eurozone deal reached without UK

Pardon?

There is no deal as long as one EU member states no then there is no deal. True to say the 23 that have agreed but that's it, agreement only but not official.

Hungary said no and the others are pondering and asking questions.

Cameron has stood up but dose he now have the guts to stand his ground as that Fascist EU will now get the big stick out and smash the UK over the head or try to buy Cameron. :hmmm:

[STEED]

Side Note: Croatia signs treaty to join EU in middle of 2013

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16106982

If the EU is finished why join it? :hmmm:

[Jimbuna]

Because I suspect Croatia will get more out than it puts in :03:

[Herr-Berbunch]

Because I suspect Croatia will get more out than it puts in :03:

Ah, just like all the other mainland countries :hmmm:

:nope:

[STEED]

Because I suspect Croatia will get more out than it puts in :03:

Plain English...

They will be in this country faster than a fart out of a cow's ar$e claiming all the benefits under the sun.

[Skybird]

Having digested the various essays of German papers' and editors' comments this morning, I see the real troubles of this "deal" yet to come in the next months. The problems with reaching agreements on a variety of details, has been delayed only. While on the surface it looks like a German-French win, I think in fact Germany's Merkel has just willed in to allow more foul compromises, covered with enough chocolade so that the peoplea t home will buy it for the moment.

It is all the foul compromises that I have predicted.

And Britain? Well, bye-bye. It is set to become a second-class player in the EU, and will not get asked about much anymore. That Cameron's only company in his path towards more isolationism is especially Hungary, also is not a compliment. Considering that Britain always posed with claiming to think European but in fact weakening, dividing and blocking Europe at every opportunity since Thatcher'S days at the latest, I cannot imagine that it will seriously be missed. Of course they will all say how sorry they are. What they really think inside their heads, is something different.

The real costs of this "deal" for Germany will emerge not before the details have gotten hammered out for the final treaty. And I fear them already now - there are plenty of poison-traps ahead for the German tax payer.

The legality of this treaty inside a treaty, already gets questioned by law experts. And as usual, public demand and opinions got explicitly violated. The congress dances - the gates stay closed, the windows remain covered. Business as usual in the EU. Hail our new old 23 kings.

And then, Croatia signs, whose economy and administration is heavily complained about for notorious corruption. And this summit should be taken as a signal that the EU has learned something? Imperial overstretch. Everybody working for the EU and every European politician should be commanded to learn the meaning of this term inside out and being able to list the historic examples by memory even when being deep asleep in the middle of the night.

But megalomania seems to be more entertaining.

[Oberon]

Figured it would happen, we've never been a player in the EU, it's always been France and Germanys show, if it wasn't for the fact that our trade would get poleaxed I'd say why bother staying in the EU, but unfortunately pulling out now would be like pulling up a tree without pulling up the roots as well and expecting it to live. Just ain't gonna happen, not without a small miracle.

[Skybird]

It seems Hungary has changed its mind also, turning Britain a cold shoulder now, at least that is what some news reports now indicate. That makes Britain's isolation complete.

[Herr-Berbunch]

Look at the picture...I'd say Cameron is contemplating head butting Sarkozy



If he did that then I think even BossMark and STEED would become fans :yeah:

[STEED]

It seems Hungary has changed its mind also, turning Britain a cold shoulder now, at least that is what some news reports now indicate. That makes Britain's isolation complete.

In there case a suitcase of money in high places. :shifty:

[STEED]

Look at the picture...I'd say Cameron is contemplating head butting Sarkozy:DL

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/57228000/jpg/_57228244_eufamilyphoto464in_reuters.jpg



If he did that then I think even BossMark and STEED would become fans :yeah:


He should head butt Sarkozy and Merkel. :D

[Oberon]

Very well, alone.

[Hakahura]

Well done Dave!

About time too.

[MH]

The Game is Up, The EURO is Finished! Nigel Farage Speaks Out
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pypd5kYTh24&feature=related

[BossMark]

If he did that then I think even BossMark and STEED would become fans :yeah:

He should head butt Sarkozy and Merkel. :D
Yeah take them both down. But as much as I hate Cameron and his Tory party, I have got say "well done" to him.

[soopaman2]

Good job Britain, European union was a disaster for the common people.

If you don't think someone(s) got rich from this worldwide finanacial crisis then you are daft, ignorant, or living under a rock.

Let the whole thing fall, the whole house of cards.

Then we can start over, with proper laws in place to protect people from financial wizards (predators).
Sure it will hurt, but alot of folks are already hurt by this, time for everyone to share in the burden, not just the super poor, and the lower middle class. Who has bore the brunt of this for the last 5 years.

Capitalism is broken, not the system, but the people who are meant to protect us from the extremes of it.

[Rockstar]

.. but the people who are meant to protect us from the extremes of it.


what you just said regardless of the system is the problem.

[soopaman2]

what you just said regardless of the system is the problem.

:up::yep:

[Jimbuna]

Well , the outcome has done nothing for Italy and Spain because their loan interest rates went up again today :DL

[Skybird]

One needs to see one thing also. Cameron was not exclusively about the new treaties. He wanted special rights and exceptions for the British stockmarket. He wanted not only to prevent future regulations for the London, and wanted not only to prevent future financial transaction taxes for London - but as being reported in German media, he also demanded that existing rules should be reversed and that London should be given special veto powers and exceptions from rules Britain already had agreed to, regarding the set called Basel-III, and slightly tighter regulation of financial transaction.

German paper Die Welt also said that he made a very arrogant and snippy appearance, pissing all the 26 others also on a personal level, due to the way in which he met the others.

British exports go to close to 50% into the EU. It has now nothing to say and decide anymore in economical issues that are of vital interest for it. And like it or not, any worsening of the Euro crisis will backfire on London as well - the pound is no autark currency, and the British economy is far from being in a shape to be supportive of any isolationistic policy.

Take from this what you want, like the outcome of the summit or not - it are simply facts that also will make their weight felt. Even more so if - what so far I do not expect - the German indeed will prevent forever anything that wpould equal the function of Eurobonds, and will indeed successfully prevent the ECB or the ESM from gaining the legal status of a bank's licence to form fictional virtual value by measures of its own. If so and the stability policy indeed would become dominant, London as a financial hotspot would be suffering in the long run, loosing in importance. Loosing deals. Loosing taxes adding to the British national GDP.

I honestly do not know wether to applaud Britain, or to cry for it.

Certain is this: they talk of a new treaty and new rules that should secure a culture of financial stability and debt discipline in the future. For some strange reason, nobody talks anymore about that we already have such a treaty and such deficit rules in place, and that just almost everybody is violating it, including Germany and France. It is the treaty of Maastricht and the socalled stability pact. When that treaty has been violated so massively until now, and so many other EU rules been violated or ignored as well - why does anybody seriously believe that just another treaty will not be violated, bypassed, ignored as well when it is seen as opportunistic - even more when Germany to a greater degree then already now will guarantee and stand up for thge losses created by doing so, and an anchoring in the de-factor EU-constitution of Lisbon has been prevented by a EU president and EU commission fearing it's status getting reduced?

For the British, I may not know what to think of the summit. But for Germany, I already know. It is pretty much the mess I feared, hidden under a thick coat of sugary words and shining glitter. The "markets", they of course have hoped to make more short-term profit by installking the socalled "bazooka": payed by the taxpapyer, installed at the price of even more debts, and benefitting some profiteers at the top who already are fat and want to become fatter at the cost of the communal interest. Their heistent, or negazive reaction today can be taken as a logical coinseqeunce for the dissappointed greed. But maybe one could also take it as a sign that they tend to agree with my assessement, though. Dissapointed greed, and sense of realism - must not always be mutually exclusive.

The operetta goes on. The orchestra doesn't find the right tones, the singers yell out of tune, and the choir knows no choreography but smiles as wide like Sun Shine herself.

But the room nevertheless applauds.

[soopaman2]

Skybird.

It is simply proof that the EU is doomed to fail.

It was as noble an idea as Communism. Until mortal men realized how wealthy they can get.

As with all things, with winners there has to be losers.

Money is fake. It is.
Think about it, what is it? It is not real.
The values are made up by men we do not know, and manipulated by people with alot of it.
Yet it governs our life. Kinda like "god". Jesus said I have to spend a knot of money on you on December 25th (don't tell them Christmas is a pagan holiday of Sol Invictus. Tree and everything, thank Rome for that)

Reality is simple, solutions are not.

[Jimbuna]

Germany exports a lot more than it imports for Europe and iirc that amounts to approximately 40% so there is a surplus of money she can afford to reinvest to the less well of european countries.

What we are seeing now is Sarkozy turning as arrogant as Merkel has been acting lately.

If and when the EU goes belly up history may well find it repeating itself....a Germany wanting to remain dominant in the area even though it was the main architect in flogging a dead horse.

The future does not bode well for any of the 27 member states I fear.

What we have witnessed since yesterday was not a 'fix' but simply a 'glossing over' of the issue with no tangible measures having been taken or agreed even to put matters right.

I truly believe it is already too late for that.

It was interesting to learn on Sky News this evening that the Germans have just started printing new currency......Deutschmarks

[CaptainHaplo]

looks to me he is thinking about whether those two are doin it..... and laughing at the idea

[Skybird]

Germany exports a lot more than it imports for Europe and iirc that amounts to approximately 40% so there is a surplus of money she can afford to reinvest to the less well of european countries.
It is always, with the greatest naturalness, claimed that other countries have, for oh so many many reasons any claim to make for German tax money. Triuthg is that we have risen our actual debts from fromerly 1.4 or 1.5 trillion before the crisis to now 2.2 trillion. Truth is that in 2008, before the crisis broke out the first time, we almost had a balance dbudget, and since then it turned highly deficitary. Truth is that our implicit debt burden, calculating all future costs due to risen interests, guarantees for bailit funds for others and such, are 5-6 trillion - possibly more.

It is an illusion on German power that we have money to give away. We have not. We make debts - very very huge debts - just to bail out others, and increase our own interests we need to service. But who bails out Germany, if need arises? Who could rescue the savior?

In the end, this idiotic "The Huns are coming once again" rethoric is just about this: greed and envy for Germany currently being slightly better positioned than other national finance systems - but this could change within one bad week, so very easily. That we also bear more responsibilities, pay more, and run greater risks than any other of the netto-paying countries - this gets comfortably ignored. After all, we are still just the Huns in everybody's thinking, so... By the end of the day, the others, and England, just do not want to change, but want to get payed by Germany, and getting payed, and payed, and then payed more.

Without the German money machine, the EU today probably would already not exist anymore. And that holds a warning for the future as well: if German finances collapses, it brings down all of Europe as well. It is in everybody's interest therefore to help that Germany does not get brought down by excessive spending into bailing out others.


What we are seeing now is Sarkozy turning as arrogant as Merkel has been acting lately.
IKt is not arrogance that Londown is denied a special status and special vetoes and a right to decide on financial issues when at the same time Lonmdon ´refuses to accept the responsibility and commitment as well. I undersatand that the fincialo industry is for Englöand what cars are for Germany, but still - the way Engöland has structured its national income, is England'S problem. And since the crisis has become life-threatening, the old rules of "always polite, always foul comporise, always a Brit rabate" have changed. That is no arrogance on behalf of Merkel or Sarkozy. It is England needing to realise that Europe not necessarily depends on British extravaganza a la Thatcher. I am not sure to what degree England needs Europe - but I am sure that Europpe needs England even less. In the end you Brits act since decades as if the Atlantic is more narrow than the channel. ;)


If and when the EU goes belly up history may well find it repeating itself....a Germany wanting to remain dominant in the area even though it was the main architect in flogging a dead horse.
Thbat is the typical and very absurd chliche. Germany and France now have grabbed the lead - because somebody had to. Frnech alwayxs wanted that, but if you look at the history of the EU and the personell and decision policy of Germany, you see a huge diffrence. Germany was extremely shy and afraid of beign seen as a nation wan ting to lead again, since decades. KIt has never sent many strong staff to Brussel, but most of the time second rank diplomats only. It sometzimes postured,l but bend over again if the others pressed hard enough. Nothing scares German politicvians more than to be isolated in Europoe over claims of wanting to dominate again - it is pathologically encrypted in german genes since WWII. - But now, while Germany after halöf a century no loner wills to just be the stupid gold-coin-donkey of the EU and beyond that just shutting up, all that enraged talkign about the Fourth Reich and Germany dominating and so on is back en mode.


The future does not bode well for any of the 27 member states I fear.

What we have witnessed since yesterday was not a 'fix' but simply a 'glossing over' of the issue with no tangible measures having been taken or agreed even to put matters right.

That I agree to, although probably for other reasons than you do.


I truly believe it is already too late for that.

It was interesting to learn on Sky News this evening that the Germans have just started printing new currency......Deutschmarks
That is new to me. While I yesterday posted that several central banks do studies and preparation for a - so Morgan Stanley - "20% chance of the Euro collapsing, there was no word on the Germans doing anything like that - espeically not printing new notes. But I know for sure that since the Euro came, German lacks the printing capacity to adress its need for print money soley by its own porinting companies - capacitiers were shut down when the D-Mark was abandoned. We now get a very good ammount of our Euro-notes printed in other nations.

German debts are over 80% of the German economy's yearly GDP. Germany's guarantees for European bailout funds, are exceeding the national state budget for one year. The budget for next year will raise new debts added to the existing ones, equalling over two dozen billion right now, plus 25 billion due to the ICF involvement called for yesterday, plus 30-40 billion so far due to the mechanism they debated about yesterday for the first 4 months of 2012 - all this money Germany ADDITIONALLY pumping into the black hoole European debts are. And Cameron wanted it to stay that way, wanted even more German investement, and an even greater bite from German cake for England - so tell me, Jim - who is the one arrogant here? Cameron, or Merkozy? It'S not as if we take this money, these stellar sums, from existring welath. We finance it all by increaisng our own debts, risking our own rating, and raising our own interest rates - with all the additonal costs this causes for us in the future.

[Skybird]

I googled for the story of D-Mark notes being printed, and found many entries indeed: dating back to as early as 2009, saying that the German will reintroduce the new old currency and leave the Euro by surprise on 1st January 2011. :) No serious source, though. No mjapor nerws portal. No newspaper. Just some "insider blogs", conspiratory websites, lobbying finance agncies presernting their desires as actual facts. There is even an apparently faked TV news message that by the looks copies the looks of the popular "Tagesschau", but is not, indeed I never have heared of a broadcaster called "KOPP news".

You have fallen for a fake news there, Jim. British media traditionally are hot in sentiment when it comes to Germany. Do not believe every nonsense they print. If the German giovenrment indeed would dare such a coup, they would start shooting at each other in parliament. Especially "Die Linke", the Greens, and parts of the SPD indeed hate Germany existing as a nation - and that is no exaggreation.

But I admit I would welcome such a move of Germany leaving the Euro. It just will not happen. Not Germany. Others, yes. But not Germany. We have far to much a bad conscience for that.

They even want to change the constitution to make it a German self-obligation that it should push for European integration at all cost, no matter what, and the opposition wants to go even further and have the constitution ruling that Germany must pay for once and forever in money whatever Europe would cost - unlimited guarantees for the debts of all others, that is! The government meanwhile wants to disarm the Constitutional HJiogh Court, so that it can no longer decide on any issues regarding the giovernment'S decisions regarding Europe. The govenrment wants to exlcude both the parliament, and the Constitutional High Court. The court some time ago has ruled that on any further bail outs for others, the whole parliamant needs to be consulted first. This is what brought Merkel up into arms.

[sidslotm]

England should put this Euro quagmire of political retoric behind it and look to the high seas again. We should not focus on the impending storm, but welcome it and put all hands to the topsails again.

We joined a common market, not give up our right as being the most stable political Nation in Europe, but to trade, this has not happened, we have been decieved by the middle class obsession with political reason.

Reason is little more than excuse, faith and belief are the builders of Nations. :up:

[Dread Knot]

Amongst all the jolly politicking the other day, did they forget:

1) EZ banks are insolvent.
2) several EZ countries are insolvent
3) squeezing 17 countries into 1 currency doesn't work.
4) the euro has no lender of last resort.
5) Italy has to refinance 300 billion euro by April - next 100
days.

Although S & M (ha) are breaking their arms patting themselves on the back, they appear not to have resolved any of the above.

[Skybird]

There are many question marks, and I assume that we will see the "markets" realising them in the next week.

What the summit has brought in substance, is this:

1. the EU isolates itself from the UK :)

2. There is an agreeement that one would author an agreement in Spring next year (! Yes, that is March or April next year, until then: nothing happens, so says the plan :D)

3. Part of the second stability pact after the one already in place right now is that the automatic sanction to pounish deficit violators may come automatically, but can be suspended by majorty vote of the Euro government heads. The debt-ridden countries and poor netto-receivers form the majoirty by these votes already now, so we all know how these sanctions will end: thy will be suspended, becasue there is honouir amongst thieves and one hawk will not pick another hawk's eye. France wonderfully creamed Germany there: still having the option that the French demand for Eurobonds get fulfilled one way or the other, later, but the German demand for automatic sanctions already neutralised on the day it got formally accepted.

4. The plan to pay 200 billion to the ICF so that it would assist in return to bail out European deliquents already is set to collapse. Washington already signalled that it would not play ball - and the ICF IS Washington for the most.

5. In general, new paper formulations to be written down in some months shall suddenly be followed while the paper-formulations beign valid treaties right now already get ignoired and violated. Where is this optimism coming from? The demand that the trety should instead become part of the dicatte of Lisbon to give it the appearance of greater obligation, successfully got tackled, too.

So I am wondering: what are they celebrating themselves for? Crisis will be back on the doorsteps - and long before Christmas days. Maybe already next week when we see market reactions after having digested the poor substance of this summit.

The only really - though probably maybe just temporary - positive thing is that the increase of debts by letting the ECB buying toxic state bonds unblimited and issuing Eurobonds still has been prevented. The loss of trust is due to doubts that states are willing and will ever be able to serve their debts. Making even more and more debts in one almost explosive raise of them thus can hardly be the answer. I only fear that this German success is just meant to falter, too. The collectivisation of debts I fear will come, under any label, by any mechanism to acchieve it by effect, no matter how it is beign called then.

Loser in influence is England so far, I think, and maybe it will even leave the EU. Clear winner is France. Germany feels as a winner, but as I said: Sarkozy just creamed Merkel. And I think she is not even aware of it, like it has been several times before in the past years. I tend to see Germany as the loser of this summit, too. It's just that the reasons for that are somewhat hidden, not to be seen at first glance. They will make themselves felt in the longer run.

[Jimbuna]

England will maintain it's prominence as the european capital for finance (open to debate and subject to differing opinions/viewpoints of coursr) but all in all what has just happened is a recipe for disaster, a stalling tactic at best.

Come on Cameron.....give the electorate a referendum.

[Rockstar]

http://img.thesun.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01420/SNN1010GX1-120_1420999a.jpg

[STEED]

I don't think the full facts will come to light until after Xmas now, the EU in pie high and everything looks a little calmer now. Once the Xmas booze is flushed out there body and the hang overs are over we will see what unfolds in the new year.

[Skybird]

BBC has these three comments by a French, a Polish and a German, and all of them focus on valid aspects and express scepticism.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16116336

[STEED]

BBC has these three comments by a French, a Polish and a German, and all of them focus on valid aspects and express scepticism.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16116336

Alan Posener, political correspondent, Die Welt, Germany

Angela Merkel is covering her tracks. She is the main person responsible for this problem, though she is now pretending it wasn't her.

I can only hope when Germany holds there general election you kick out the poison dwarf.

[Skybird]

Britain and the EU

The Failure of a Forced Marriage

A Commentary by Wolfgang Kaden

Was the outcome of the Brussels summit a bad one for the EU? Not at all. The British were never completely dedicated to European unity and the ongoing project of greater fiscal integration is better off without them.

It was to be expected. And now it's official: The British have elected not to join the treaty governing Europe's new financial system (http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,802703,00.html). Prime Minister David Cameron refused.

Does that mean, then, that German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy have failed? Not at all. Only incompetent amateurs could have believed that London would join the attempt to overcome the European debt crisis together. European leaders in Brussels hammered out an agreement that marks the end of unlimited fiscal sovereignty -- and that conflicts fundamentally with the British understanding of Europe.

The result of Thursday night -- the 17 euro-zone countries joined by nine others (http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,802703,00.html) pending parliamentary approval in three of the non-euro-zone capitals -- is a success. A success for the majority of Europeans and for efforts to find a solution to the euro crisis. Any deal with the obstreperous British would have been a weak compromise, and one that would have allowed questionable economic practices to continue.

But from the very beginning, Great Britain's participation in a united Europe was a misunderstanding (http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,802823,00.html). When the EU was founded, the British still hadn't finished mourning over their lost empire. Europe seemed far away and Continental efforts at unification were seen by many among the British elite as little more than naïve idealism.

Despite such doubts, the EU became a reality, and a success -- and it was economic realities that ultimately led London to join. Companies in the UK pushed the government toward Brussels because staying away was far too risky economically.

Grave Misgivings

Still, the political classes in Britain (http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,802854,00.html) never fully shared the Continental conviction that the European Union was an absolute political necessity following two destructive world wars in the 20th century. They never fully believed that Europe had to grow together, despite all the cultural, linguistic and societal differences.

In the 1960s, the empire was history, with one colony after the other declaring independence. But instead of turning toward Europe, Britain looked west to the US. And to this day, the UK feels much closer to America than it does to the frogs and the krauts on the other side of the English Channel. One could see the strength of that bond as recently as 2003, when then-Prime Minister Tony Blair joined President George W. Bush in his Iraq adventure despite grave misgivings on the Continent.

In Brussels, which has for decades been depicted in the British press as little more than a bureaucratic monster, London has mostly played but a single role from the very beginning: that of a spanner in the works. There has hardly been a decision aimed at greater European integration that Britain hasn't sought to block. And it was a role that even brought financial benefits. Ever since Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher famously demanded "I want my money back," Britain has had to contribute less to the EU than the size of its economy would otherwise require.

To avoid misunderstandings, it is important to note that Britain is a fabulous country, as are its people. Their finely honed humor, tolerance, composure, language, culture and, yes, their worldliness are all to be praised and envied. Germans particularly, with their predisposition to overwrought fear, could learn a lot from the British.

Demanding a Say

But the UK and the EU was a source of frustration for decades. On the long term, a member cannot demand all of the benefits of a community while refusing to shoulder its share of the burdens. One can't constantly seek to thwart all efforts at greater European integration while at the same time demanding a say in all decisions.

Great Britain is an EU member that never truly wanted to be part of the club. It was more of an observer than a contributor and it always had one eye on Washington. Indeed, it is telling that the country never joined the border-free travel regime known as Schengen -- Britain still checks everybody who enters the country from the other side of the Channel. The political establishment was likewise extremely skeptical of the common currency from the very beginning.

It is true that much of the criticism was spot on, which is why the euro zone is now in crisis and in need of repair. But it wasn't really the design shortcomings which led the British to stay out of the euro zone. Rather, it was their independence -- one could say currency nationalism -- which led to the country remaining on the outside.

Though that hardly kept them from acting at EU summits as though they had long since introduced the euro. At the summit before last, in fact, Sarkozy even lost his cool, telling Cameron "you missed a good opportunity to keep your mouth shut." The French president continued: "We are sick of you criticizing us and telling us what to do. You say you hate the euro and now you want to interfere in our meetings."

Only One Possible Answer

Now, finally, there is a clear line of separation. On the one side is euro-Europe with a treaty obligating them to stay within clear budgetary and sovereign debt boundaries. And there is the rest which still has complete sovereign control over their finances. The 17 euro-zone member states will no longer be forced to accommodate a country that rejects anything that smells like supra-nationalism.

There is certain to be a debate over the question as to how a divided Europe should continue. But that doesn't have to be a disadvantage. Such a debate has been necessary for a long time and conflicts can not always be avoided. Sometimes, a bit of bickering is necessary to create clarity.

The questions for Britain, however, are equally difficult. What exactly is the country's role in the EU? British historian Timothy Garton Ash, a critic of the euro-skeptic course followed by the Cameron administration, said recently in an interview with SPIEGEL: "If the euro zone is saved, there will be a fiscal union, which means a political union of the euro countries.... Then, in the next two, three or four years, we in Great Britain will face the final question: in or out?"

If the British political class does not undergo a fundamental transformation, there is only one possible answer. Out.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,druck-802933,00.html


I pretty much agree with the above. I attack and criticise like and obsessed at times :DL, I know I know - but I also said that after its destruction it needs to be replaced and that the European national economies need close coordination and one voice towardsa the outside of Europe - else the global economic competitorsd will eat the single national economies in Europe one by one. My problem with the EU is the feudal attitude, and that it wants to be so very much more than economic coordination.

I have absolute doubts that Britain would ever agree to give up that part of national sovereignity that would be necessary a sacrifice by any European participant in such coordination.

Whether that coordination ever has a realistic chance in Europe to not get qabused by nations for own interest, or to be comnpromised for own advanatge, is something different. It is the way to go - whether one fails in accomplishing it, or not.

[Skybird]

I can only hope when Germany holds there general election you kick out the poison dwarf.
And what do you expect to get in exchange for her? A socialist-green or a socialist-communist coalition more to your taste? Both is possible, though the latter not too likely. But the first is one of the two dominant possibilities.

Currently I would give a coalitition of CDU and SPD the highest probability to win elections, which means a very good probability that things would move on like right now.

The liberal FDP, in coalition right now and having fallen from 18 to 2%, I have no longer on my radar. The probably fell into the gutter when jogging. They are not being missed.

[Jimbuna]

There is a fundamental factor in the UK that IMHO overrides all else, regardless of whether it be political, fiscal or economic opinion and or speculation by these so called 'experts'.....

No political party in the UK has yet won a mandate to make the ultimate decision as to what the UK is going to eventually decide on the politically hot potato of the EU....and no party has the courage to make said decision without a referendum because that would be party political suicide for at least the next generation.

The only true way forward is for each party to include in their next pre-election manifesto what their clear position is and give a definitive timescale on said committment.

[Hakahura]

http://img.thesun.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01420/SNN1010GX1-120_1420999a.jpg
:up:

So pleased this man has finally realised that he is the British Prime minister.

And as for the Euro as a currency, it may take a while but....

"Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning"

Now where's the Referrendum?

[STEED]

The only true way forward is for each party to include in their next pre-election manifesto what their clear position is and give a definitive timescale on said committment.

Are yes what we are not going to do but we will say what it takes to get elected. :shifty:







Up the revolution, smash the corrupt state. :rock:

[soopaman2]

http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/6043/cwjmo111209.gif

Greece and Spain are closest to her hairy armpits.

[Skybird]

And another critic who is angry that those Germans do not will to just sit and pay for the debts of all others to give the market another 3-day rally before it gets bored again! ;)

[STEED]

And another critic who is angry that those Germans do not will to just sit and pay for the debts of all others to give the market another 3-day rally before it gets bored again! ;)

Right your on Sky, which one? :DL

FTSE-100
Dow Jones
CAC
DAX
NDJ

What the heck...check them all.

[Skybird]

Great Britain Saves Itself by Rejecting the EU

The French and Germans may howl with outrage, but David Cameron did the right thing in pulling up the drawbridge to a continent on the verge of collapse, says Niall Ferguson.

by Niall Ferguson (http://www.thedailybeast.com/contributors/niall-ferguson.html)| December 9, 2011 11:00 PM EST

To listen to some conservative commentary in London on Friday, you
would think the British Prime Minister David Cameron just morphed into
Winston Churchill, valiantly upholding England’s ancient liberties
against German aggression. In fact, what happened in Europe this week was nothing so grandiose.



David Cameron’s refusal (http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/12/camerons-inevitable-veto.html) to back a Franco-German plan to revise the European Union treaty (http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2011/12/09/e-u-deal-leaves-out-britain.html) was the culmination of a consistent Conservative policy, dating back to Margaret Thatcher and continued under John Major. That policy has been to resist any steps taken in the name of European integration that would in practice lead to Britain’s becoming a member of a federal Europe.



Cameron is not—despite the opprobrium that has been heaped on his head by everyone from the French President Nicolas Sarkozy to the shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander—a pathologically insular Little Englander. Like Margaret Thatcher, he believes in the single European market. Like John Major, he opposes British membership of the European monetary union (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/12/09/half-baked-treaty-deal-could-lead-to-collapse-of-eurozone.html). As over the Schengen Agreements on passport-free travel, as over the euro, Britain has once again reserved its right to retain sovereignty over key areas of policy.


Nor is this an exclusively Conservative policy tradition. Gordon Brown, too, resisted the siren calls of the Europhiles in his own party to take Britain into the EMU. I don’t think he did this out of high principle, mind you. I suspect it was partly to spite Tony Blair, partly to maximize the economic power he retained as chancellor of the Exchequer and partly to please his friends in the City, many of whom were rather put off of monetary union by the trauma of Britain’s brief membership of the Exchange Rate Mechanism. Nevertheless, Brown’s preservation of the pound was his single greatest achievement. Had he yielded, the British economy would now be suffering a far more agonizing economic contraction, because we would have lacked the monetary flexibility that was so successfully used by Sir Mervyn King to mitigate the impact of the 2008-9 financial crisis.


So it is not that British policy has dramatically changed. The real historical turn is the one now being taken by the 17 euro zone members and the six non-euro states that have chosen to follow them. For there should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that what they have just agreed to do is to create a federal fiscal union. Moreover, it is a fundamentally flawed one. The only surprising thing is that so few other non-euro countries—Sweden, maybe the Czechs and Hungarians—have joined Britain in expressing reservations. I quite see why countries with the euro are prepared to give up their fiscal independence to avert a currency collapse. But what on earth is in this for the others?


Nicolas Sarkozy, as usual, bad-mouthed the British prime minister in the hope of maximizing his own personal glory at the expense of la perfide Albion. “Very simply,” declared the French president, “in order to accept the reform of the treaty at 27, David Cameron asked for what we thought was unacceptable: a protocol to exonerate the U.K. from financial-services regulation. We could not accept this as at least part of the problems [Europe is facing] came from this sector.” This is claptrap of the lowest order.


To see why, you need to read the “international agreement” announced in the early hours of Friday. The stated aim of the agreement—which would have been the aim of EU treaty revision had Cameron rolled over—is to establish and enforce “a new fiscal compact and strengthened economic policy coordination” in the euro area. The phrase “fiscal stability union” is explicitly used. It is to be based on “common, ambitious rules” and “a new legal framework.”


How will this work? The answer is that there will be a “new fiscal rule”: “General government budgets shall be balanced or in surplus; this principle shall be deemed respected if, as a rule, the annual structural deficit does not exceed 0.5 percent of nominal GDP.” This balanced budget rule is to be adopted in the national constitutions of euro zone members. But there will also be an “automatic correction mechanism,” enforceable by the core EU institutions—the commission, the council, and the court—if member states violate their own constitutions.


Moreover, the document states that there will henceforth be “a procedure … to ensure that all major economic policy reforms planned by euro area Member States will be discussed and coordinated at the level of the euro area” with regular euro zone summits to be held at least twice a year. The French and Germans leaders have made it clear that they envisage harmonizing labor law, taxation, and financial regulation on this basis.


This, in sum, is the founding charter of the United States of Europe. Notice two problems however. First, it is not clear how the European Commission, Council, and Court can act in this way, policing a 23-member fiscal union that is not covered by any treaty. Second, the balanced-budget rule is nuts. As it stands, it’s a recipe for excessive rigidity in fiscal policy—unless you think the rest of the Brussels Agreement implies a significant centralization of fiscal policy. Because you cannot have a balanced budget rule for member states if you don’t also have a federal government with flexible fiscal rules (as in the U.S.).


So where is the clause describing the new USE Treasury, with the right to issue bonds as well as to transfer resources from the more productive to the less productive member states? The answer is there isn’t one because the German voter refuses to countenance such a thing. That means one of two things. Either it’s going to be created by stealth—or this is a federal union that will be dead on arrival. I think it’s supposed to be the former, but I am not sure.


0Remember, none of this would be happening if it wasn’t for a disastrous crisis of the Eurocrats’ own making. Twelve years ago, I was one of a small band of commentators who warned correctly that a monetary union without some fiscal component would fall apart after about 10 years. Four years ago, I was also one of a handful of people who pointed out that the German banks were in worse shape than the American banks and needed urgent attention. Europe’s leaders ignored these arguments. The result has been an entirely predictable combination of fiscal crisis and banking collapse.

In the past few months, incompetent leadership has brought the euro-zone economy, and with it the world economy, to the edge of a precipice strongly reminiscent of 1931. Then, as now, it proved impossible to arrive at sane debt restructurings for overburdened sovereigns. Then, as now, bank failures threatened to bring about a complete economic collapse. Then, as now, an excessively rigid monetary system (then the gold standard, now the euro) served to worsen the situation.


For some time it has been quite obvious that the only way to save the monetary union is to avoid the mistakes of the 1930s. That means, first, massive quantitative easing (bond purchases) by the European Central Bank to bring down the interest rates (yields) currently being paid by the Mediterranean governments; second, restructuring to reduce the absolute debt burdens of these governments; third, the creation of a new fiscal mechanism that transfers resources on a regular basis from the core to the periphery; and finally the recapitalization of the ailing banks of the euro zone.


The problem is that the Brussels Agreement only does these things in the most half-hearted way. Aside from new borrowing, euro-area governments have to repay more than €1.1 trillion euros of long- and short-term debt in 2012, with about €519 billion of Italian, French, and German debt maturing in the first half alone. Meanwhile, the European banks need, we are now told, €115 billion of new capital—of which €13 billion is required by German banks.


Yet the European Financial Stability Fund has been capped at €500 billion, of which more than half has already been committed. The International Monetary Fund is to be given (by whom?) just €200 billion to recycle back (to whom?). And the ECB has committed itself to spend no more than €20 billion a week on bond purchases in the secondary market.


It is all, quite simply, too little. And the result is that the euro zone is about to repeat history. In the absence of sufficient resources for the new federal model, the new rules about budgets (and bank capital) are going to lead to pro-cyclical fiscal and monetary policies, deepening rather than alleviating the economic contraction we are witnessing.


“Eurozone Deal Leaves Britain Isolated” trumpets the Financial Times, for many years an ardent proponent of monetary union. But if David Cameron can succeed in isolating Britain from the disaster that is unfolding on the continent, he deserves only our praise. For once the old joke—“Fog in the Channel: Continent Cut Off”—seems applicable. There is now a Depression on the other side of the channel, and it is indeed the continent that is cutting itself off—from sane economic policies.


Last month I warned that the disintegration of the European Union was more likely than the death of the euro. You now see what I meant. The course on which the continent has now embarked means not just the creation of a federal Europe, but a chronically depressed federal Europe. The Eurocrats have exchanged a Stability and Growth Pact—which was honored only in the breach—for an Austerity and Contraction Pact they intend to stick to. The United Kingdom has no option but to dissociate itself from this collective suicide pact, even if it strongly increases the probability that we shall end up outside the EU altogether.


Many more brickbats will rain down on David Cameron in the days to
come. But he has done the right thing. And he will swiftly be vindicated by events on the cut-off continent.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/12/09/niall-ferguson-great-britain-saves-itself-by-rejecting-the-eu.print.html

That could very well be, regarding the events on the cointinent. My quesiton is if an economyx with raising unemployment, high deficit, high debts, and sending almost 50% of its exports to said conteint, is set up sufficiently to afford a position of de facto total isolation and exclusion from European decision-making.

[Jimbuna]

And another critic who is angry that those Germans do not will to just sit and pay for the debts of all others to give the market another 3-day rally before it gets bored again! ;)

Let us be frank with everyone on here Sky....the Germans (or should I say Merkel) have took it upon themselves to be the panacea of all the EU ills, and for the strength of me I don't know why because I suspect the German people/taxpayers had very little say in the matter.

Mr Sarkozy has quickly jumped on the bandwagon because IMHO he has sensed Merkel may eventually be overeaching herself and that of the German people, at little or no expense to that of his own.

The sooner one or the other come to the realisation........meltdown.

I doubt many of the 'hangers on' countries are all that bothered because in the short term they gain, without little or no cost to themselves.

Croatia for the win (for example)....I'm sure they'll bail your country out when you run out of money to waste/burn LOL.

Sad really that it will probably eventually come to this.

[Hakahura]

If this all pans out to a logical solution, then I think the UK will eventually free itself of the EU.

Good for Britain, but good for the EU? I doubt it.
Whilst many would be glad to see the back of the UK, will they be glad to see the back of our financial contribution?

Britain is the 2nd biggest net contributor to the EU budget.
Only Germany pays more in and gets less back.

Its very hard to find numbers that agree and obviously the EU itself does not make a big noise about it, but anyone who thinks the EU does not need the UK should investigate this.

If and when Britain leaves I will celebrate, but also feel sorry for the German people, as I think they will be forced by their government to pay alot more to prop up the EU.

UK referrendum now!

[joegrundman]

If this all pans out to a logical solution, then I think the UK will eventually free itself of the EU.

Good for Britain, but good for the EU? I doubt it.
Whilst many would be glad to see the back of the UK, will they be glad to see the back of our financial contribution?

Britain is the 2nd biggest net contributor to the EU budget.
Only Germany pays more in and gets less back.

Its very hard to find numbers that agree and obviously the EU itself does not make a big noise about it, but anyone who thinks the EU does not need the UK should investigate this.

If and when Britain leaves I will celebrate, but also feel sorry for the German people, as I think they will be forced by their government to pay alot more to prop up the EU.

UK referrendum now!

I think the UK will shuffle further away from the EU too over the next few years. The die is cast. Britain is no longer at the top table, so...

I think it is better for the EU too. Whether they can or cannot make something more solid and lasting out of this crisis is yet to be seen, but they are more able to put things into practice without Britain.

The absence of Britain's financial contribution would be felt. However this may be the last thing to go, and may never actually go, but remain in some form as the price of trading privileges and good will.

But even without that, supposing Britain does want to become a rentier state dominated by our much loved financial services industry. Then that same financial services industry will be doing international business. It won't be doing America's work since they have Wall Street. Mostly I expect it will still be doing business for Europe.

Imagining an optimistic future in which Europe survives, deals with the present problems, and integrates into a real federation of some sort, I think Britain can successfully piggyback between the security and financial opportunities provided by the US and an integrated Europe, and prosper based on the offer of freewheeling financial services that Europe may have legislated itself out of doing.

Britain as a hub of free-wheeling financial deals for the countries around it is a role sort of like a supersized Hong Kong of the 80s.

But don't make the mistake of thinking that by leaving the EU Britain is seeking to preserve her democracy.

The reason for leaving the EU is to preserve the financial sector (according to Cameron, anyway), and the financial sector which has recently demonstrated its superiority over the rest of Britain's body-politic, will accordingly continue to increase its influence over British politics.

Looking at the big picture I think it could work, and if you are in the financial sector, the prospect must be exciting. London would be a very thrilling place. If you are not in the financial sector, you might find life becoming more depressing.

just my little vision of the future...

[Skybird]

Let us be frank with everyone on here Sky....the Germans (or should I say Merkel) have took it upon themselves to be the panacea of all the EU ills, and for the strength of me I don't know why because I suspect the German people/taxpayers had very little say in the matter.
Indeed - last representative poll by Emnid (the major poll-institute here) that I read maybe 3 weeks ago on the matter, said that three of four Germans are against this madness when being asked for the role Germany plays in saving the Euro. A majority of the Germans did not want it from all beginning on!

I explained earlier why the German "elite" (hahaha) of artists, feuilleton-writers and politicians made it their favourite hobby to let Germany dissolve in a "higher Europe". It is the bad conscience deriving from WWII. That'S why first the EU got declared an issue of peace and war, and when the the Euro had arrived and came under pressure, they started the same claim about the Euro: abandon the Euro, and you will see a Europe turning to war. They now have the new variation of the slogan released: let the fiscal union collapse, and there will be wars in Europe.

If the EU does not get it's will, there will be war.

And if you see some of the reactions in Greece and Britain, the many pictures and posters with German politicians ridiculed as being depicted as a Hitler 2.0 and all that stuff about a Fourth Reich, you must admit that there is plenty of anti-German sentiment indeed, deriving from the war. Or take your own yellow press on the days before a meeting of the English and German soccer team. That is a media world in wartimes.

For Germans, it also holds another lesson. During the 70s and from then on, maybe Germany could be seen as the hotspot in Europe of "Anti-Americanism" - and I mean Anti-Americanism not as constructively meant, fact-oriented criticism (like I attacked the US and the Bush gang heavily over Iraq 03, nevertheless said again and again I do not see mysyelf as an Anti-Americanist), but as an ideologically misled, mostly leftist irrational hostility that amongst other features includes a strong envy for the power of the US that enables(/d) them to do as they want for quite often a time. By that, America did a lot of silly things, yes, but it also did a lot of good things and secured the safety of the Western world - even that of anti-American Germany and Europe. When now Germans will be paying the bills of the Euro and effectively safe the continent from loosing the Euro (maybe), we certainly should not expect that our neighbours will be thankful and pleased by that. Like America earned more hostility then sympathy at times, the same will happen to us, and others will become the greedier at our options the more we do for others. Anti-Germanism runs very strong in Europe, and the EU, and it was just invisible when the Germans did not use their immense power and sat put and just payed the bills one gave them. Now that Germany - from the perspective of the pro-Euro faction - has no other choice than to raise a higher profile and finally - after much German resistence and many opportunities it gave ground and more ground and the more - take the lead: the pack starts howling and fears the storming Nazi-Hun again.

We repeat the experience the Americans have made in the past decades, seen this way. There is just one difference. American mentality is different, and it became stronger by being faced with this pressure. German people, I mean the wide public opinion - do not dare to appear as strong and will always deny they are. For us and our self-pewrception, a strong German is an evil German. Never never again may Germans ever dare to be strong again.

Think you get my point, yes!?

[Oberon]

http://covers.openlibrary.org/w/id/485008-L.jpg

:hmmm: :haha:

[Torplexed]

Events are heating up in Britain vs the Continent. Various Euro officials are making some hot comments indeed about Britain needing to be punished, isolated, taught a lesson (I've seen the old "perfidious Albion" being used more that once. ). Ambrose Evans-Pritchard on the British side absolutely blows his stack here:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance...m-flam-treaty/ (http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ambroseevans-pritchard/100013758/europes-blithering-idiots-and-their-flim-flam-treaty/)

So that's heating up. And here's some more on the banking system stress:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/f...-collapse.html (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/8947470/Eurozone-banking-system-on-the-edge-of-collapse.html)

Bloomberg:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-1...akup-risk.html (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-09/wary-european-ceos-move-cash-to-germany-to-protect-against-breakup-risk.html)

It's clear capital flight has started. The next step will be capital controls, with various countries under stress enacting emergency measures to keep money inside their borders. It's sort of the captain trying to stop the rats from leaving the ship. The threat of such controls will only increase the impetus to get out before it's too late. But from the stand point of the country involved, it's death for it's banking system if they don't stop it.

[Skybird]

One of the EUropean diseases thse days is the trend towards mandatory, obligatory, enforced uniformity and collective one-opinion-streamlining. Soldiarity is no longer voluntarily given on the absis of reasonable assessement, but it is being demanded and commanded, no matter for what. It has become a tool, a battle-term for the goal to establish the centralist, almost dictatorial governing regime of the EU: one continent, one sphere of rulership, one opinion, one identity, one whatever. I called the EU turning totalitarian and uniform repeatedly, and I mean it. It is no propaganda slang by me, but a sober, content-focussed diagnosis.

Other terms get abused for the purpose of doing political warfare, too. "Social justice". "Tolerance". Both go down your throat easily, they are glibbery and sweet and it is almost joy to swallow them. But both get used to just justify the arbitary regime of the established few over the many, and denying the public, the many, the right for a different opinion or demand to run different policies than those the few at the top enforce against the many, since that opinion would show "intolerance" and "social injustice". In other words: using these terms today serve the demonsiation of the one with a different political viewe on things than the EWU demands, and extreme radicalisation of the conflict.

Self-justification it also is.

[Jimbuna]

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard on the British side absolutely blows his stack here:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance...m-flam-treaty/ (http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ambroseevans-pritchard/100013758/europes-blithering-idiots-and-their-flim-flam-treaty/)



They have to whip up a witchhunt against somebody, so why not Anglo-Saxon bankers? Nasty reflexes are at work. German and French politicians in particular should be very careful about inciting populist hatred against a group that makes such easy prey. We have been there before.

No doubt these dramatic events will be uncomfortable for Britain, but this will all be swept away by bigger events before long. The Europols have not begun to work out a viable solution to their deformed and unworkable currency union, and perhaps no such solution exists. The system will lurch from crisis to crisis until it blows up in acrimony.


Merkozy



But the vain and hysterical little man now in the Elysée will soon be gone.


Love it :DL

[joegrundman]

well, just to keep it balanced, Will Hutton blows his stack at what he thinks is Cameron's stupidity, trading Britain's influence in Europe to save a tiny percentage of financiers from having to accept some controls

Cameron has made a crucial misjudgment, simply to appease the City and his own jingoistic rightwingers

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/dec/11/will-hutton-david-cameron-wrong-on-europe

[Kongo Otto]

What i dont understand in this whole story is this: When the UK is so against the EU, and they have been against everything since they joined, why did they join the EU anyways back in 1973?
I think DeGaulle was right when he said "The UK shouldnt be an Member of the EU, because they are the Trojan Horse of the USA" back in 1963 and 1967.
For whom is Cameron demanding special rights?
For the Banks and the finance industry, ah ok and to whom do they belong mostly? To the US Finace industry.
Aaaaaaha so this is all a "Dont bite the hand whos feeding you" thing!
DeGaulle was absolutely right when he said in the 60's the UK is not more as an vassal state from the USA. This has been approved by Mr.Camerons behavior on the EU Summit acting as an speaking trumpet for the mostly US dominated UK's Bank and Financial industry.
So Bye bye UK, surely nobody will miss you in the EU.

[Jimbuna]

Another good article and obviously to be expected when there are those that are for and those that are against.

To each individual there own position/viewpoint on the subject :yep:

Give the electorate a referendum!!

[Oberon]

So the UK is being seen as the bad boy of Europe, whilst the UK is looking on at France and Germany as being the new leaders of Europe.


How is this different from any time over the past seven hundred years? :haha:

[Jimbuna]

I think DeGaulle was right when he said "The UK shouldnt be an Member of the EU, because they are the Trojan Horse of the USA" back in 1963 and 1967.


And how grateful he was of the fact only twenty odd years earlier :DL

[Kongo Otto]

Give the electorate a referendum!!

A very good idea, should be done in every EU State!
I'm pretty much fed up with paying my hard earned money in form of taxes for Broken States like Greece or Italy etc.
What do we get out from the EU? Nothing we are just good enough to pay for the whole bunch of crooks!
Those taxes from the German taxpayer could be spend much better for all the stuff still to do here in Germany.
Theres absolutely no reason to waste German taxes for unwilling states like Greece, Spain or Italy, they deliberately lied about their national finances before they joined the Eurozone and now they should see where they get the money from.
Most of the newer states in the EU just took way more out as they paid in and all the EU did was enabling wage dumping by their EU subsidies to the new EU Members, destroying German Jobs!
Why should the German Taxpayer be responsible for the incompetence and the deliberate deception of most of the EU States prior to their joining of the Euro Zone?
EU does not mean Germany is paying for your after work Party costs!

[Kongo Otto]

And how grateful he was of the fact only twenty odd years earlier :DL

Well maybe he was pissed on his leg to often by the guys after Sir Winston?

[Kongo Otto]

So the UK is being seen as the bad boy of Europe, whilst the UK is looking on at France and Germany as being the new leaders of Europe.



Well you dont become Europes leader sitting on an island and saying "No" all the time. Pretty simple isnt it? ;)

[Jimbuna]

Well maybe he was pissed on his leg to often by the guys after Sir Winston?

He's yet to settle his board and lodgings bill :smug:

[Kongo Otto]

He's yet to settle his board and lodgings bill :smug:

At the place where he is right now, he's already done that with Sir Winston. ;)
Most possibly the two took over command up there. :DL

[Oberon]

Well you dont become Europes leader sitting on an island and saying "No" all the time. Pretty simple isnt it? ;)

:haha: This is true, I don't think we've ever wanted to be Europes leader though...well...not since the 1400s anyway, we were quite content to claim the rest of the world and then have it rebel in our faces.

[soopaman2]

Well you dont become Europes leader sitting on an island and saying "No" all the time. Pretty simple isnt it? ;)

Are you trying to say they are the European equivalent of Americas Republicans?

They like saying no alot too, even if it is helpful.

Though I agree with the Brits, the Euro needs to fail. Culturally it will fail. As catastrophic as it is, it would be best.

Then the weak will be able to fall, and the strong can endure, without being drug down.

Unless bailout a la American style bank bailout style is your cup of tea. Socialism disguised as saving capitalism.

[Jimbuna]

At the place where he is right now, he's already done that with Sir Winston. ;)
Most possibly the two took over command up there. :DL

LOL....old Winston could probably do with a batman :DL

[Kongo Otto]

LOL....old Winston could probably do with a batman :DL

:haha:
:salute:

[Catfish]

Cameron now receives fire from his own party and the conservatives because he "isolates Britain".
Where Cameron got the idea of - as he said - Britain leading the EU and after his profound fail continueing to do so, nobody knows .. ;)

[Oberon]

Cameron now receives fire from his own party and the conservatives because he "isolates Britain".
Where Cameron got the idea of - as he said - Britain leading the EU and after his profound fail continueing to do so, nobody knows .. ;)

It's not so much his own party I'd wager...most of the Tories were quite pleased by it, the Euroskeptics in particular, but the Lib Dem side of the coalition are less than impressed. A fact which has been underlined by comments by the Tea Boy (Clegg) and his absense from the Commons this afternoon, which gave Labour a nice field of fire on Dave.

[Catfish]

Well he has pretty much pi**ed off the "rest" of Europe, and while this is certainly a momentary gain in charming conservatives and EU critics at home, it will influence Britain's international stance - we will see if this is a positive sign and outcome for the british economy. I also doubt England will or wants to be a member of the EU very much longer, and some european countries may be even glad about that. This is bullsh!t, a strong Europe with Britain is the way to go, but since everyone seems to cook his own national soup after 40 years of this union .. and the future of economy and commerce lies in the east (read: Russia, and China) for sure.

They say the Euro was the "price for the german reunification", but i wonder who said that, and why. Imho it was just a political and miltary decision, with Russia not able to pay their military anymore. I also wonder why an Euro is really necessary, apart from simplifying trade and commerce of course.

[Skybird]

I read that several British cities have started to end their partnerships with partner cities in France and Germany. So far, four got quoted.

These partnerships once were meant to help forming attitudes preventing wars. Usually I would think that the high mobility today, the international communication, the easiness by which private people can now internationally interact, would cause the fading of meaning of such partnerships, and thus it is only natural to let them run out of forget about them.

But in this case I think it is a symptom of the swing in a widespread British mood. Some politicians in Britain - some! - may slap Cameron'S face, and all European politicians may do as well, and people on the continent for the most may not understand it since we got used to opinion uniformity and obligatory displays of mandatory "solidarity", no matter how foul the comprose smelled.

But it seems to me a very big part of the British citizens support the move away from Europe.

It will serve the British economy well - although the financial sector will take a beating - if the Euro collapses. If the Euro stays, it will hurt the British economy. And in the long run the importance of London may fade - intended by the EU - in favour of continental stockmarkets, namely Frankfurt.

No easy match to play for Britain.

[Jimbuna]

Clegg explains his absence:


The deputy prime minister has said he was not present in the House of Commons while David Cameron was questioned about the EU summit because it would have been "a distraction".
He said he thought that the outcome of the talks in Brussels was bad for Britain.
Mr Clegg added: "Being isolated as one is potentially bad for jobs, bad for growth, bad for the livelihood of millions of people in this country. But the coalition government is here to stay."


Video interview here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16149742

[Oberon]

A lot of popular opinion in the UK though, from what I can tell, is actually in favour of Daves actions though, there has been nothing but negativity about the EU for the past twenty years and most Britains seem to be pretty fed up of it. For most problems we are told "We cannot do this because of EU regulations", particularly in the farming and fishing industry. As a result there is not inconsiderable resentment towards the EU in Britain, something which I think that Dave has unwittingly tapped into. It's obvious his stance has nothing to do with the average Joe Public and everything to do with the fat cats in the City, but he can, and will, spin it that he did it for the people not the banks.
The amount of resentment from the EU towards the UK is only going to feed the anti-EU sentiment in the UK and will, in time, most likely result in the UK withdrawing from the EU or at the least withdrawing from a lot of its commitments to the EU.
If conducted correctly, a withdrawal from the EU is feasible within the next ten to fifteen years, however that requires a level of consistency and forward thinking which is unseen in modern politics and thus any British withdrawal from the EU is likely to be a frenzied, damaging affair conducted under a cloud of emotion and angry diplomatic exchanges...it's for this reason I am against it because it would be, as I have already said, like taking a tree out of the ground without bringing the roots, replanting it and expecting it to grow, our roots, our trade is firmly linked within the EU market, there is no question of it, and a sudden withdrawal and the adjustment of tariffs that would follow it (particularly if Berlin and Paris, in a fit of anger, decide to raise tariffs against the UK) would devastate our economy in a period when it really cannot afford to have such damage. We're not the US, we do not have the luxury of being able to keep putting the problem to one side, nor are we Russia, with massive oil reserves to sell...if we get into an economic problem outside of the EU, then we'll have no-one to rescue us.

Then again, by the time we'd get into a problem in the EU then there'd be no-one left to rescue us anyway! :haha:

[Oberon]

Clegg explains his absence:



Video interview here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16149742

Heh, his absence was probably a bigger distraction than his presence would have been...no...he was gagged and I think it was pretty easy to see. If he had been there then his backbenchers would have put pressure on him to break from the party line and then Dave would have had to have Prague Springed him. :O:

[Skybird]

And the insiders and the "markets" today: their reaction to the summit was - as was to be expected, wasn'T it - cool, to put it mildly. Rating Agencies fire more warnings, Moodys wanmts to follow S&P example. The euphoria over the EU declaration of future intentions for next Spring (that alone is a joke!) already has dissappeared.

[Jimbuna]

Never fear..Croatia will sort it all out with her financial contribution :03:

At this rate I'm expecting the referendum issue to be a pivotal part of each partys pre-election campaign next time around.....if we are still in the EU that is.

[Skybird]

Top lawyers from the EU and independent ones as well find serious flaws in the summit'S conclusion on a fiscal union.

The way it should be implemented in order to avoid a changing of the Lisbon treaty to avoid referendums and needing to ask the people in some countries (these silly homewgrown terrorists) is a separate treaty, but this fact is legally vioolating the priority set for the various treaties they then would have. Complex issue, conclusion is: any sanctions imposed under the new treaty - would be illegal.

The general secretary Barosso I. of the central committee of the SEU meanwhile said that the automatic introduction of sanctions for deficit violators for legal reasons would only become valid if the sanctions become decided by majority of the heads of states. This results from the hierarchy of certain EU treaties that put the authority of this decision being made before sanctions over the demanded automatism of a sub-ordinate treaty they want to get in Spring. Which means the automatism is not any automatic at all. - Confirms just what I said about one hawk not picking the eye of the other, two or three days ago.

Today it gets reported that the supervisors installed to monitor the Greeks, say that Greece already is breaking its promises to the ECB and ICF again, and will not only not meet its obligations, but even increase its deficit - and quite greatly.

Markets and stock indices - well, you have watched the news today, haven't you.

I laughed on the day the summit ended. And I laugh even louder today. Black humour is the only way to stay alive when watching this display of incompetence, unscrupulousness, fraud and infantility.

A mouse that roared. Have you heared it? No...? Hm. Well, doesn't matter. Move on.

[Herr-Berbunch]

Heard some foreign politician on the radio today say that Cameron did what he thought was best for Britain's interests, and that Merkel and Sarkozy are also only looking out for their countries interests - they couldn't give a toss about the others, but if one goes it'll drag them down too. :hmmm:

[Jimbuna]

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02074/ADAMS041211_2074392a.jpg

[Catfish]

^ :rotfl2::rotfl2::rotfl2:
:up:

[Jimbuna]

http://imgcash2.imageshack.us/img265/3228/turkeyseasonzi5.gif

[STEED]

I see there are cracks now, wonder why?

Maybe the full details were not there and Germany along with France wanted to steam roll over the rest of Europe..."You will obey".

Clear off. :)

[Jimbuna]

I see there are cracks now, wonder why?

Maybe the full details were not there and Germany along with France wanted to steam roll over the rest of Europe..."You will obey".

Clear off. :)


Nothing would suprise me but only time will tell.

[Skybird]

http://www.welt.de/multimedia/archive/01529/woz_infla_DW_Wirts_1529676p.jpg
20-billion Reichsmark note.

A little history lesson in German language: a warning on why it shall not be thought that the crisis today must be solved by printing money, money and then printing more money. In Germany, we have been there - we never shall want to get there again - AT NO COST.

A brief history of the German hyperinflation. (http://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article13772624/Das-Schreckgespenst-der-Hyperinflation-taucht-auf.html?print=true#reqdrucken)

At the end of 1923, the living costs in Germany were 77 billion times as high than they had been immediately after the war 1918.

[Oberon]

Aaah, the good old Weimer Republic:

http://usagold.com/weimarplay.jpg

http://surfingthenewnormal.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/hyperinflation-1.jpg


To be fair though, the fact that Germany crashed before the Great Depression meant that things couldn't get much worse when '29 hit. In fact, IIRC Germany was one of the least effected of the Western Nations because the DM couldn't sink much lower. Of course that was little consolation for Germany, and of course we all know how it eventually turned out.
Can't say I support the whole 'Merkel = Hitler' propaganda, but there is certainly a risk of cunning people using the dire economic circumstances to politically profit and put forward an agenda that in Boom times would be laughed out of legislation.

Of course, since I have incurred Godwins law, my whole post is now irrelevant. :dead:

[Skybird]

Well, the little history lesosn above holds an uncomfortable parallel in the last paragraph.


Erst eine neue Währung beendete Ende 1923 die Groteske. Die Rentenmark war angeblich durch Grund und Boden gedeckt – eine Lüge, die aber niemand hinterfragte. Der Währungsschnitt war die größte Umverteilung von Vermögen in der deutschen Geschichte: Die Mittelschicht verlor ihr Erspartes, und Rentner wurden mittellos. Profitiert hatten dagegen alle, die auf Pump Häuser, Äcker oder Unternehmen gekauft hatten.

Translation:

Not before 1923, a new currency ended the grotesque. The "Rentenmark" was claimed to be be covered in material value of property in land and housing - a lie that just did not get questioned by anybody. The currency cut was the biggest redistributuon of wealth in German history. The middle class lost all its savings, and pensioneers became penniless. Profiting did all those who had bought houses, fields and companies on tic.

The last two sentence should make one think about today's actors' real motives.

[Jimbuna]

Aaah, the good old Weimer Republic:

http://surfingthenewnormal.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/hyperinflation-1.jpg


To be fair though, the fact that Germany crashed before the Great Depression meant that things couldn't get much worse when '29 hit. In fact, IIRC Germany was one of the least effected of the Western Nations because the DM couldn't sink much lower. Of course that was little consolation for Germany, and of course we all know how it eventually turned out.
Can't say I support the whole 'Merkel = Hitler' propaganda, but there is certainly a risk of cunning people using the dire economic circumstances to politically profit and put forward an agenda that in Boom times would be laughed out of legislation.

Of course, since I have incurred Godwins law, my whole post is now irrelevant. :dead:

That barrel load would have just about been enough for a loaf of bread :hmmm:

[Oberon]

That barrel load would have just about been enough for a loaf of bread :hmmm:

If you were lucky! :doh:

[Skybird]

The German essay I linked, starts with telling a Kafka-esque story of a family that sells it's house and property and travels to Hamburg to leave for America to escape the German inflation. Arriving at the harbour in Hamburg, the prices already again have exploded and the money they got for selling their land does not pay for the ship travel anymore.

But it also is not enough anymore to just return to their former home town again.

[STEED]

Read this book.

When Money Dies: The Nightmare of the Weimar Hyper-Inflation
Adam Fergusson

Good read. :up:




http://www.amazon.co.uk/When-Money-Dies-Nightmare-Hyper-Inflation/dp/1906964440/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324220405&sr=1-1

[Skybird]

See the irony: Euroland has asked London to send 30 billion to the ICF so that the ICF could give it to Euroland.

:har:

Panic in Eastern Euroland countries reported, banks and cash automats got stormed.

[Jimbuna]

There will only be one irony.....the UK getting a referendum.

[Dan D]

Merkel had sex with Sarkozy and David filmed it.

[nikimcbee]

Merkel had sex with Sarkozy and David filmed it.

Now there's an idea?:hmmm: The porn idustry is a multi-billion dollar industry. Just think of the revenue they could generate? (just from Finland alone):o:har:

[Jimbuna]

http://chzjustcapshunz.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/funny-captions-angela-merkel-triangle.jpg

[STEED]

^^^That look on her face, I did a deal with the dark one...yea baby.^^^

[Dan D]

There will only be one irony.....the UK getting a referendum.
My understanding is that there will no referendum in the UK about the UK's membership in the EU, even though the UK public is EU-sceptic and the (Murdoch's) press is EU-hostile , basically because the referendum thing in general is new ground, widely undiscussed and the when and why holding a referendum in Britain is not sorted out yet, eg.:http://nortonview.wordpress.com/2011/05/03/the-case-against-referendums/

But what about this? Would that have been feasible way for David?
"The first question I’d really like answered is why David Cameron didn’t take the same course as the other states that disagreed, and simply say that he needed to consult parliament. It is theoretically possible for a British prime minister to both sign and ratify treaties executively, but it’s been assumed since the first world war that they must be at least seen by the House of Commons, and anyway this one required some very serious legislation at the national level.
I can’t imagine that the Tory hard right would be anything other than delighted by the chance to kick it out, even if the fact of being consulted and given power over a real goddamnit treaty didn’t fix them in itself. Had the Commons killed it, there’s no reason why it wouldn’t just have been another ratification foul-up, like the ones we regularly have with Irish referendums and decisions from the courts in Karlsruhe. Of course, it might never have happened – the treaty will need ratifying, quite probably this will mean one or more referendums, super-majority votes, recourses to the supreme court, and the like."
http://fistfulofeuros.net/afoe/the-european-union/if-you-dont-want-to-read-about-the-content-this-is-the-post-for-you