Thank you Skybird

I never gave the shape of the table any thoughts, just those books.

Markus

I am stumped on this one as I just can not see who would replace Vince.



https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics...-do-vote-deal/

If you fail and second fail push push again and bore everyone to death so in the end they may vote for it. Then declare its the greatest victory of all time and whoop it up.

Quite right, and a refreshing argument after all this "we can't say it so directly, they are so easily insulted .. meemeemee..." :haha:

The real problem is that feelings have become "facts", and people are too lazy to think for themselves. Not alone a UK problem of course, but explaining a lot.

Sky has given an accurate response in #9481

That would certainly work for me and when you refer to my country as a 'whiner' don't your country amongst a few others I suspect start 'whining' when you are asked to pay in extra contributions to make up the shortfall of a former (still currently) major financial contributor/net payer.

Looking at the 2016 figures (happy to see anything more current if available) the UK is the third largest payer (13.45% of the EU budget) and Finland ranks thirteenth contributing a massive 1.56%

I appreciate it is easy to become a tad brash when posting online but in the cold light of day I think it wiser if a sense of proportionality and forbearance can be maintained whenever possible.

Finland paid 1.5 bn to the EU in 2017, and got back 1.6 bn. No by a huge margin it nevertheless is a net receiver, and net receivers fear for their free income if net payers threaten to walk away. ;


https://fullfact.org/media/uploads/U...ee_in_2017.png


In case of Germany, the difference between payments and paybacks was 14.3 bn in 2016 at Germany's disadvantage. In 2017 it still was around 10 bn.


Its peanuts, more or less. The real bone breakers are the Euro liabilities, Here we talk about hundreds of billions, and in case of Germany: in excess of a trillion. If we count the German saver's property as well, trillions in plural, please. Of both desasters, Euro and EU, the Euro is the far worse desaster for Germany. The economic gain we get from it, in no way comepnsates for it and usually gets hopelessly glossed over in our state quality media. The Euro costs us far more than we gain from it, summa summarum. Far more. Even worse if we keep our exports alive by providing European net receivers the money the money need to buy our exported products. Dumm, dumm, dumm, dumm, dumm... We work for free.

Thanks Sky, I thought there might be more recent figures out there.

To maintain a sense of clarity below is the link to my source.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/...contributions/

I still don't like this deal she is persistently trying to peddle but it would appear there is a steady trickle of increasing support.

Here are some calculations from 2016 figures which were latest available in accessible format.

Finland

Contributes
1,828.65 M€

Receives
1,530.76 M€

Percentaga returned
83,7%

Net contribution
-297.89 M€

Per capita
-297,890,000 / 5,513,000 = -54.03 €

United Kingdom

Contributes
12,759.60 M€

Receives
7,051.55 M€

Percentage returned
55,3 %

Net contribution
-5,708.05 M€

Per capita
-5,708,050,000 / 66,040,229 = -86,43 €

In both cases per capita is calculated using 2017 estimates as posted in Wikipedia. Other data is retrieved from here:

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/extern...efault_en.html

In summary its true that net payment (for that year, they vary from year to year) is smaller regarless of how you calculate it. However direct comparison between percentages of the EU budget at large paint somewhat skewed picture.

My visual impairement has progerred to the point where getting information from pictures is problematic. Do you have a text based source for same data?

Again, this is not about facts but "gut feeling". Those feelings become facts in the mind of some, and everything that does not fit into their filter bubble perception is called fake news. By those some.

It has been perfectly clear that richer countries with thriving economies pay more. Easy to understand, or does anyone think that e.g. Andorra or Greece should pay more than the UK, or Germany?
This is one of the self-evident aspects of this special union. And it has helped a lot of smaller countries to get their economy going, to the benefit of all.

Must be hard for the UK to realize this 30 odd years later and then complain about it. Well to be true they complained all of the time, but they also contributed, while hints and politics were much more important than money. Sad to see what becomes of this.

Also: Interest Ireland pays to UK banks for the bailout
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/...loan-1.3053791

Actually, there are, but I found at a first glance numbers from 2017 for one country, from 2016 for the other, and then a third set from 2015 and 2010... I did not want to spend too much time with searching, the money paid by a country can change signficantly form one year to the next, so I tried to find numbers quickly and on the fly that are close together in time.



In general I find it absolutely hilarious that a country contributing one fifth of the total EU budget, has the same and not more power and vote sonly like a coun try that contriubutes less than 1% of the EU budget. If the rule should be that the heavy economy hitters should not dominate due to a 20 time shigher payment of theirs, then it has to be imple,ente ddifferently, it then nevertheless needs a relative link between inflouence/power/voting power and the net contriution the country pays in, but there must then be limits of payments being allowed. Which would also signficantly reduce the budget of the EU and keep it on a much shorter line. If then the UK or Germany shall have no more votes and not more say on matters than for exmaple Malta, then Germany and the Uk also should not be allowed to pay much mor emoney in than Malta does. That way, a fairer balance and more equality would be acchieved.

Did I just describe a heresy? I am so sorry.

Also, I do not get it, it sound slike a man-in-thge-middle attack: If a nation pays in lets say 10 bn, and gets back 8 bn, then why does it even make it this complicated? Why is not just 2 bn paid in, and the other 8 bn stay were they come from and return to anyway? The answer is clear: centralism, and parasite wanting to make a perosnal money for nothing form it.

Its all a hoepless intention with this EU project. A free trade zone it shoud be, and not more. Leave all that freaking socialist making-people-equal-ideology and centralist planned economy madness out of it, and we could be done. If you want to clear the water, don't stir it in order to bring your idea of what order is to the grains of sand in it - but leave it alone, leave the glass of water sit still for a while.

But then all the fat cat and the lobbyists and the social carers and the redistributor industry and the morals-for-a-mission ideologists would lose the alibi for their (parasitical) existence, so I fear this will never happen.


Hayek should be mandatory lecture at schools across all EU nations. The man was so very much more than just an "economist".

If you ask me (and no one did so I volunteer this thought) EU is afraid to let UK go and give them good deal at the same time for fear other countries like Greece or even Portugal might want to follow suit. :yep:

PS Isn't it really just numbers on paper if you never spend it? Example Boeing aircraft just lost 12 billion dollars in stock value from one plane crash yet they have plenty USD left to draw on ... Same with the debt you never pay by just paying the interest ... Lots of fear here in UK and hardly any the USA ... I would have to look it up, but we (the USA) is trillions of dollars in debt. Just numbers on paper ...

Well, K. Oktjabr already said it:
" [...] The UK already had favourable membership conditions (exceptions from rules, reduced membership costs, etc.) and that wasn't enough. Then [the UK government] comes into the negotiation table thinking that they could get better terms than the UK had as a member state. Why would the EU and its remaining member states accept that? "

And that is the point. Why?

Regarding the numbers on papers (called 'money') you (Quatro) mentioned - exactly: If you take out a loan, the bank just writes some numbers on a piece of paper. To really earn this stuff it is you that have to actually produce or generate it.
Robbing a train is nothing, against founding a bank :03:

Brexit is a project by the elites, for the elites

You mean Greece, Italy Spain Portugal etc? the benefit was short lived Catfish.

It helped get their economies going for while, via having them piling up debt, in an artificial bubble that popped in 2009. And now many of them live under the misery of austerity with 20 something percent youth unemployment.
and on top of these issues they are expected to embrace a quota of the uncontrolled migration mostly from sub Saharan Africa.
But those nations have next to no jobs or government welfare, most of the migrants don't even want to settle there, they want to get to Germany or Sweden where they have better prospects.
Austerity, youth unemployment, mass migration and enforced Political correctness is the perfect storm for far right ideology to take hold.

Of course I'm not entirely blaming the EU for this, as its multi faceted, but they are partly responsible, as is the case when anyone gets in to debt troubles, you take in to account the actions of that indervidual (nation), those that lent to them (financial institutions/IMF etc) and those that egged them on because they had something to gain (the Eu).
Poland on other hand, economically grew more within it means (and refused migrants) and the Poles are undeniably doing better, both socially and economically than member states who took the other route.

Those are my two biggest concerns with the EU, creeping authoritarianism (still weakly enforced but its intended none the less)
An institution which seeks to expand without dealing with its financial rot, can only have one eventual outcome - collapse.

Now the UK is going to ask the EU for an extension to Brexit, The EU will choose weather or not grant this based on what they prefer.

a) leave to crash out - in the hope it will be chaotic and make an example to other Euro skeptic member states.

b) £20-13 Billion a year + perk of maintaining some control over UK law and policy.

If I'm right, they will go for option b) because they need money.
If I'm wrong and they are in fact financially sustainable, they will pick option a)

Their response to the extension will speak volumes on their current state. Lets see shall we.

Why should net receivers (and Euro debtors) wish to leave a most comfortable arrangement that earns them money for free? They get more from the EU than they ned to give back, financially I man,. Wehther the population likes Brussel to stick its nose ever deeper into the private things of people and even startig to raise its own taxes, is somethign different. But mind you. They alk about estalbishing continental unemployemnt and healthcare insurrances. Greece, Portugal would look forward to benefit much from this - at the cost of those nations and their private savers who need to pay the bill. The eU allows regions and nations to live beyond their means. Nations doing so are the last wanting to leave. ;)



The net payers going off the flag - that is what the EU must fear. The loss of centralist control when the collective splinters.



Another threat is that net debtors in the Euro scheme leave the currency. There creditors will not see their credits ever again anyway, but if their debtors leave, the creditors cannot hide this fact from their voters at home anymore.

Corrected that for you.

So you want to compare Greece and Poland?
Poland did economically better because of keeping out migrants? :doh:
I'd say this is a basic attitude of the country's citizens and especially those rich who do not pay taxes in Greece.

Also: First, Polands PIS party is not so old that this achievement can be put on their positive list of achievements, can it?
Second Poland did so well because of being a EU member. But i'd give you that, being in the EU or out Poland would still fare better than Greece, guaranteed.

Did i say only poor countries benefit from being in the EU? How about the UK? England? Ireland? How was Manchester built up? Of course smaller countries, too, like Malta (also UK i know), or Slovenia or Estonia, or Latvia. Greece and Italy are special, because of the rich paying almost no taxes there, while their tax-evading mostly benefits the London banks :haha:

As i just read the average person in England has lost 900 pounds during the last year. So the pound is still strong compared to the Dollar? But the dollar has fallen as well. Growth in the EU and the Eurozone is higher in the previous 12 months than the UK, and it is projected to stay that way.
I see the UK government is so brilliant with its strategies and foresight, so as you said i will just lean back, get my popcorn and observe how the UK continues to become the world's Nr. 1 economy after brexit.
Oh, the EU will grant the UK an extension until short before the EU elections this year, but this will be it. That is, if the EU is not infected by the UK brexit chaos, and still has a brain to think with.

Yep, funny isn't it, when a person or company survives on maxed out credit cards and just pay's off the interest each month, is frowned upon and seen as irresponsible, (which it is)
But for most government & institutions in the world, its the standard practice - so long as things look good on the surface (right now), that's all that matters. Screw the future, someone else will have to deal with it.
Frightening really.

No I thought i made that clear. Not so much economically (other than trying to get them fed and housed in the short term).
But more socially, are you going to pretend there has been no social problems in the nations bearing the brunt of the migrant crisis over the past 4 years? I hope not.
Economically Poles remained more cautious when it came to borrowing. I don't know about the PIS party, but i don't see who its relevant as I'm talking about How Poland acted over the past 2 decades.
The Eus open arms towards migrants and refugees, was more than likely an investment in man power & cheap labour force (based on declining western birth rates) dressed up in alot of heroic self inflated progressive fluff. Nothing more. Turned out to be more complicated and messy than they anticipated.
Migrants drowning in Med/ Dissapearing off the radar/ committing disproportional crime / not particularly wanting to work in car factories. (cant blame them on that last one)
And then far right crazies coming out of the cracks to exploit the situation, rile up support and threaten to toppling centrist establishments.


Many were not paying taxes in Greece, not just rich, evasion was easy and went largely unpunished. plus it goes way deep in to Greek Culture. The Eu knew this when Greece signed up, seems they didn't care.
Now Greek tax has risen with austerity, so people avoid paying them them more, and keep their money out of banks in case the government seizes their personal savings (the Eu was just fine with this Policy by the way, not an infringement of article 1, imagine that!) We are talking about regular working class people by the way, not millionaires.
One Greek guy I had a drink with last year to said the taxes were just half the problem, the other half being that 'it turns out to not be not very sustainable to import cars and computers, while exporting olive oil and feta cheese'.


Italian government has been a hot bed of corruption for a very long time now. so its no surprised they bit off more than they could chew and got greedy.

But then I already explained that the Eu is only proportionally to blame for Italy and Greeces mess, they heavily encouraged/ contributed towards them making it - but were not pressing the buttons. And also they showed ZERO sympathy for those who suffered when gravy train ended.

I will also point out the rich also pay virtually no taxes in Switzerland. And no real problems there.

Do you think that's actually been paid for yet? governments and large institutions don't need to pay for things like that BEFORE or AS they are carried out, they can fiddle it to pay years or decades later, the way our wonderful system works. And of course governments don't make any actual money of there own, they collect from the population, (and they borrow). So our kids / Germany's Kids will likely still end up paying for that one in the end.
I somehow doubt the EU just said 'here England, you've been a good boy so have some no strings attached cash you can use to regenerate Manchester'.
No.
What countries get back from the Eu is often roughly proportional to what they put in. So in the end it makes no real difference. Nobody hands money over to the EU for free, and nobody receives money from the Eu for free. There is no 'free money'. - but there is cheap money. (ie, lower interest rates on debt)
And what the Eu mostly offered to poorer nations, was access to the single market and access to CHEAP BORROWING which they could not afford to ever repay.
The EU helped to sell them a 10 year binge with a 30+ year hangover.

no the UK wont be No1 after Brexit obviously - it will tank int he short term on a No deal - no doubt about it.

As it for the markets indicating/forecasting how strong or weak a nation or blocks economy is doing, remember the market only operates on short term perceptions, they don't address underlying problems (like rotting foundations) anymore than our politicians do. if they did - the U.S.A would have junk status today with its 20+ trillion debt (with everyone else not far behind).

I'm guessing they'll go for a) as well but b) might just be the push that Parliament needs.