Germany Puts Forward End Of British Pound -- UK Goes Crazy:

Discussion in 'Western Europe' started by janpor, Nov 18, 2011.

  1. Iolo

    Iolo Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Yes - though they don't put it that way, obviously. All the tories, all the Liberals and most of the Labour Party manifestly dream of nothing else. They even talk American in anticipation, with idiot metaphors from baseball they don't understand. Obviously the choice is Europe where we belong or becoming a run-down hole owned by the Yanks, as you know. There aren't any other choices.
     
  2. Heroclitus

    Heroclitus Well-Known Member

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    Yabba yabba yeah. Still, I suppose I do a bit of that...so where are you taking us?

    I would expect nothing else. Agreeing that there's a problem and wanting to do something about it - ie reforming EU institutions - are however, two different things. It's still interesting to reflect that though the UK opts out occasionally, when it opt in it has the highest percentage of compliance with EU rules of any major EU country.

    You see it is only in France that people are not embarassed to speak such paranoid, delusional drivel. Of course in the 1930's French chauvinism blamed all this garbage on Jews. Now it's "les anglo-saxons". The first credit downgrade was not on Europe, but on the USA. Why would the conspirators shoot themselves in the foot first? Ah, I suppose it's because they are so dastardly deceitful.

    Your problem here is with global capitalism. Interest rates rise because of the risk of default. This is caused by a monetary union which prevents highly indebted countries from floating their currencies, when such a currency would devalue against, say the deutschmark, for example. First it penalizes those countries with a high deficit - hardly the responsibility of "les anglo-saxons" - and then it will penalize all Euro currencies, unless the leading country, Germany, agrees to stand behind the currency and the deficits of those people in the zone. This is how the system works, and how France and Germany have always understood the system to work. It has nothing to do with English devils trying to cripple France. The Euro would not be in trouble if it was a country; but, thanks to German resistance in this case, it refuses to behave as a country and guarantee all the deficits, as a country would. So the markets, quite rightly and understandably, see inherent weakness in the Euro as a result.

    Your view is typical of modern leftism. There is first an intellectual laziness that easily analyzes everything as a plot. Such vulgarity is not actually very French, who used to be rigorous here, but their approach has atrophied now so we get this nonsensical mush, just as we get it on the English Left. People would rather respond with emotional garbage, blaming it on "neo-liberal conspiracies", as you do, than properly analyze the real nature of the crisis. This then naturally extends - in France, and NOT in Germany - to an illiberal statism that panders to chauvinism and protectionism, and is deeply anti-democratic. Look how the French were in a tizzy about the prospect of Polish plumbers a few years ago and how much they hate the principle of the free movement of labour in Europe (including the way they persecute Rroma, truly in their scumbage Vichy-loving collaborating Jew killer tradition - yes my emotions run pretty deep on this and my hatred of nationalism is uncomromising). They French HATE free trade and the necessary financial system that brings. There is still a French alliance between socialism and fascism (remember how the French still vote Nazi in their millions) which panders to xenophobia and protectionism. Two speed Europe is no more than modern protectionism, extending French influence through the bureaucratic system of the EU - entirely anti-democratic in their nature - to enforce a Franco-German chauvinism and protect the isolationist Gauls from too many Macdos opening up and their whole way of life and long lunch breaks being forsaken by yeilding to anglo-saxon barbarism.

    You are blaming it all on neoliberal anglo-saxon globalization. It's the familiar argument of the leftists and easily concurred with by the neo-fascist. So it goes down well in France.

    No, I haven't noticed any war. I have noticed that Germany's understandable - and almost certainly this is a negotiating position - refusal to stand behind the deficit countries, is undermining confidence in the whole currency. Why wouldn't it? Why shouldn't it? There 'aint no such thing as a free lunch janpor.

    My imagination, the anglo-saxon press conspiracy - all in my mind? The German British alliance is called the EU. It is also a French-British alliance. Your ludicrous attempt to isolate the UK is just not the real position of France or Germany. All countries join with different ones from time to time on different issues. You know this is what I am saying but you choose to distort and deceive with this bollocks. Germany doesn't want the French protectionist agenda.

    "If you say so" drivel. Clearly the strong anti-globalization agenda you push here is a drive for increased proetctionism from a smaller bloc within Europe that can be dominated by France and Germany. Otherwise you would agree with me that further integration of any countries, should only happen after a full overhaul of the corrupt and bloated bureacracies that currently run Europe. Before any further union there needs to be signficant institutional reform and change needs to happen with the consent of the European people. Now is not the time. Now is the time to fix the crisis.

    You ignore my strong argument that the least approrpiate time for constitutional change is in the middle of a crisis. This is how tyrants manipulate events. Without a full overhaul of European Institutions, no further integration should take place. On the other hand, Germany will have to pay up eventually. Merkel will have to defy her people or watch the whole house come tumbling down - and this is entirely due to the fact that you cannot have a single currency with proper political control, but that the latter was not conceived of or implemented properly by France or Germany before this started.

    This is a priceless insult, and already dealt with extensively. You put yourself in a difficult position here. Suffice it to say that I am very disappointed that you won't be participating in any debates about the USA any more, because - unless you are a hypocrite - you clearly believe yourself to have "no business to interfere" in that debate, not being a US citizen.

    I wonder that you come here at all then and don't confine yourself to subjects nearer to home, where you can argue with people whose main source of information is not "the global anglo-saxon" press. But my position - I repeat it as you ignore it, preferring the sneer of "mind your own business" to real debate - is simply that Britain is in the EU, is a major trading partner of the Eurozone, is interconnected with the Eurozone, and will be damaged by the collapse of the Euro, and so has every right to "interfere". When your neighbour's house is on fire, it's your business. If you are honest, you will agree with this position. Why is American chauvinism so ugly, but French chauvinism acceptable?

    If you were less willing to just jump to paranoid conclusions you may make more sense. Stock market capitalism is stronger in "anglo-saxon" countries for many reasons. The main reason is that it was the UK and the USA that were at the centre of the Industrial Revolution, and stock market capitalism was its engine. The whole subject is massive, historical and involves a lot of nuance - which defies your simplistic vulgarity here. I think that regulation does need to be strengthened, but to imagine that London's dominance of the financial markets is anything other than a two hundred year old phenomenon, is just crazy.
     
  3. Heroclitus

    Heroclitus Well-Known Member

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    A "two speed" Europe is an act of protectionism by weakening the free trade zone that currently exists in the EU. Additionally, because it is not to be based on a fundamental democratization of EU institutions, it will by its nature be an elitist bureaucracy driven by technocrats who "know best", over the heads of the European people.

    So it is a solution which is highly reactionary, that will weaken Europe economically through protectionism, and that will set back the cause of a democratic, United States of Europe, for decades.

    I am quite clear that your position is music to the ears of Daily Mail readers and Little Englanders who will use this to forward the cause of British isolationism and be able to characterize this new bloc as a Statist, illiberal, undemocratic oligarchy. It's not surprising to see this unholy alliance of nationalists, chauvinists and anti-globalization economic illiterates, coming together to promote this tyranny over the heads of, and despite the wishes of, the European people.
     
  4. Paris

    Paris Well-Known Member

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    Very honourable of you, Hero, to make it sounds as if Anglophobia in Europe was due to too much French influence. I wish it were true, but in fact I think you just brought it upon yourselves. Keep it up;)
     
  5. Heroclitus

    Heroclitus Well-Known Member

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    I don't think there is much anglophobia in "Europe". I have traveled and worked a lot in Europe and have friends all over. I only ever found this animosity to les anglo-saxons in France. Maybe it exists in Belgium a bit too, but I never noticed it much in Germany or the Netherlands. In Italy England is admired. Dutch people are anglophilic. Polish and Czech people are pleased we are not Germans (we look a bit the same). Scandanavians share our views on Europe...

    So I think that anglophobia -if we want to make a big thing of such a lighthearted term - is only a French phenomenon (with plenty of exceptions even in France)...and that would be due to the French I suppose. This is pretty disappointing given that we have been pretty useful allies with the French in two world wars, and that the Battle of Waterloo was a long time ago.

    Even the most vehement French anglophobe reacts warmly to an attempt by a brave rosbif to speak French and offer a clearly articulated appreciation of French cuisine and wine. After a good meal, with a good cheese trolley and a fine Bordeaux, we're all friends again anyway.
     
  6. tamora

    tamora New Member

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    You're being absurd. If the Tories, Labour and the "Liberals" wanted us to be an American colony they would not be hell bent on EU membership. And why do we belong in Europe, other than in a geographical sense?
     
  7. Paris

    Paris Well-Known Member

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    Oh, it is only in France, then? Please, tell us what sort of abuse you have been subjected to, by the French, as an Englishman.. Mind you, try to find something which you had not provoked first,, I'm dying to know, Hero!
     
  8. tamora

    tamora New Member

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    I've been to Paris several times and I've always been treated with friendship and courtesy by almost everyone I've met (apart from waiters who seem to think they doing their customers a favour when serving them!).
     
  9. Paris

    Paris Well-Known Member

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    True. Parisian waiters are the worst I have ever come across. Orwell summed it up nicely when, in Down and Out in Paris and London, he wrote:

    And that is why waiters are seldom Socialists, tamora;)
     
  10. Glücksritter

    Glücksritter Well-Known Member

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    For which smaller nations are you talking? For Slovenia, compared to Greece a relatively very poor country, which should now pay for the most rich 2000 Greece families in the future not to pay taxes as they did not in the past? Beside the fact that you are demanding more casino mentality in Europe (sorry, but what we do now is exactly this; due to losses on the table we increase and increase the sum for the hope to win back), what's your personal drive??

    Your comments I read here are oftentimes typically leftist, but what you protect here as an order and try it to mask behind Germany/France paranoia is a plutocratic order in which now the tax payers all over the Euro zone should intervene if otherwise reforms needed that would tax Greece's richest families, who don't like to pay taxes. It's not the only topic I could go on with the financial transaction tax which the UK don't want, we could go on here.

    I mean, it's a matter of the UK what policy it wants, it's not me to evaluate this, but I ask myself how this plutocratic order the UK stands for fit to the rest of your comments on this board. Or are you economically not convinced of left positions?

    PS: If there will be a Europe of two velocities will be decided in Paris and you can be assured that Germany will most likely follow Paris.
     
  11. Glücksritter

    Glücksritter Well-Known Member

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    You have missed a chance to visit the former GDR in the aftermath of the reunification, now you will never know the worst waiters of the Western Hemisphere.
     
  12. Paris

    Paris Well-Known Member

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    I never had a chance to visit your country. But I am now saving a bit of money to go spend in Berlin this Winter. I think I will LOVE it:date:
     
  13. Glücksritter

    Glücksritter Well-Known Member

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    But the only historical chance to see the worst waiters in Europe passed. You can propably see some bad ones here, but no comparison to Greifswald, Weimar or Luckenwalde in 1991.

    "You want a coffee? No, that's impossible, we switched off the coffee machine"
    "Oh, ok, um could you turn it on again, please?"
    "Sorry, but normally there are just a couple of customers who like to drink coffee after half past four, it's not worth to switch it on again."

    ...
     
  14. Iolo

    Iolo Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    We've been part of Europe always, as part, for instance, of the Roman Empire, the Catholic Church, the Reformation churches and so on. Almost all the Royalty - in England anyway - came from other European areas and intermarried with European royal families and so on. Obviously we belong to Europe. All the various tory parties you mention, as you know, do as they are told, within limits, by the City-controlled Noise Machine, which hates the idea of being stopped from grabbing everything, but except among the nuttier tory-tories they are aware that leaving the EU would mean national ruin and the loss of their comfortable seats.
     
  15. tamora

    tamora New Member

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    The UK is and always has been part of the geographical continent of Europe. That is not in dispute. Belonging to the EU is a very different matter. I couldn't care less if MPs lose their seats, but are you actually suggesting leaving the EU would result in national ruin? If so, why? As you should know, politicians act within the limits of EU legislation which frames national policies and the City will decide if that's in its interests too as EU legislation increasingly affects it. I, for one, hope that it will not accept that legislation and force a day of reckoning.

    And I'm sure you know there is but one Tory party, and you'd expect the City to look after its interests; after all that's what everyone else including the Welsh Assembly members, does!
     
  16. tamora

    tamora New Member

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    Reminds me of when I worked on a supermarket delicatessen counter in the evening. I can actually see where those waiters are coming from. :ashamed:

    Sometimes customers would ask for meat to be sliced after we had cleaned the slicer and ten minutes before the shop was due to close. We used to tell them that the machine was broken. I hardened myself to their disappointed little faces with relative ease. :mrgreen:
     
  17. Iolo

    Iolo Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    There is only one official tory party, obviously, but if you know of any real difference between the groups of scoundrels, name it. The EU is obviously, despite all its bull(*)(*)(*)(*), immensely superior to our City puppets, who will clearly grab everything that isn't nailed down and run, as they did in my own country. The choice is between being part of Europe and pushing for democracy or being Puerto Rico.
     
  18. tamora

    tamora New Member

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    First, you'd better tell me who are these "scoundrels" are. Name names.

    And WHY do you think the EU is better than our own politicians? Its powerful bureaucrats and (much less powerful, but well looked after) politicians seem even more self-interested and out of touch with their citizens than our own.
     
  19. Iolo

    Iolo Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Every member of the tory and liberal parties in the English Parliament, for a start - look 'em up for yourself. Plus every Blairite member of the Labour Party and most others. Why do I think the EU is better? They don't have to grovel to the Mail and the Sun, obviously. Those are about as low as humanity has got yet.
     
  20. janpor

    janpor Well-Known Member

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    Heroclitus, let me first start by saying that I'm merely replying to you with a feeling of "je-ne-sais-quoi". Your post is nothing more than a mix of present fiction and historical accuracy, not to mention it is very inconsistent with your previous posts in this thread. I almost feel like a lab-technician in my quest to dissect this post to only find very little truth, in short: it was of very poor quality, hence I wasn't really motivated to respond.


    This is highly infactual, which seems to be a bigger problem with your posts.

    The conspirators as you call them, I prefer the term "rating agencies" -- already shot themselves in the foot with a bazooka in 2007-2008 when all of their AAA-products went bust. So the first question arises: what the hell do they know?

    Secondly, the first sovereign credit downgrading in this entire saga happened on Greece, so not on the USA as you claim -- with mass-hysteria as a result in the Anglo-Saxon media. This is not a matter of opinion, this is a matter of fact.

    Goodness gracious.

    First of all, I wonder why you even bothered trying to explain something as simple as you just did, it's almost an insult to my intelligence since you learn this is mandatory economic classes in middle school.

    Secondly, you couldn't be more wrong when suggesting that I somehow have a problem with global capitalism because it is (1) global or (2) capitalistic in nature.

    Bollocks!

    It is indisputable that the rise of the Euro, from the very start, was considered to be a threat in the USA, and that ever since this has grown into an outright sense of fear because it could challenge the Dollar's status as the ultimate world reserve currency. Now, taking into consideration your fantastic knowledge of history, I'm sure you are aware that the only way the USA was, is, and continues to be a superpower, is merely due the position their currency was given in the constructed post-1945 system of world governance.

    I wonder why you went on this silly rant, trying to make a link between modern-day France, Socialism and Facism. It's completely irrelevant in this discussion, therefore very disturbing.

    It's almost hilarious to witness your hypocritism, although I think it more leans to outright ignorance, probably nurtured by your own unconscious realization that Liberalism, on itself, in part, is largely self-consuming.

    Where is your criticism on the financial markets, who are the thesis of anti-democractic forces?

    Stop your nonsense already.

    I'm complaining about the vulgarity of the very anti-democratic nature of financial markets. These markets are the fruits of the neo-liberal mantra, packed into the Washington Consensus of which the USA and the UK are the main supporters of. They escape to any form of democractic control.

    This -- you almost calling me a neo-Fascist, on itself, is the world upside down -- especially for someone like you who panders to the all-knowing financial markets, Heroclitus!

    The point here is not isolating the UK -- it has done so completely on herself, so nobody -- certainly not me -- needs to help her to isolate herself even further.

    There is a realization, as well as in France as in Germany, than one needs to grow to eachother. France needs to temper her consumerism, whilst Germany needs to feed hers -- and in the same spirit, France needs to be a more industrious, and Germany a little bit less.

    I disagree completely.

    An answer is needed now, not tommorrow or the day after -- what seems to be what you are suggesting.

    It is true, that without the consent of the European peoples, there is being organized a massive overhaul of the entire system. It goes slow, because it is of such an epic magnitude -- this is needed, and the European heads of state and government are quite aware of the tricky situation there are in, since none of them have an actual political mandate to do this all: building basically a two-speed-Europe around the Eurozone (in specialized media this is called "Euroland").

    However, as far as I'm concerned, extraordinary circumstances ask for extraordinary measures, in this case: a two-speed-Europe, a Euroland with harmonized fiscal, social and economical policies that would be able to channel the agressiveness and anti-democractic forces of the financial markets in the prospect of getting her house in order as soon as possible.

    No, I don't ignore your argument -- since I think everyone agrees that the least appropiate time for "constitutional change" (it isn't, btw) is in the middle of a crisis. But not everything is easy, and sometimes you just haven't have a choice.

    ...

    Nonsense -- I never said that the UK shouldn't be heard to voice her concerns or criticisms, and we might take those in consideration eventually.

    It's an entire different matter for giving the UK a permanent seat, and/or a veto (as she requested a couple of months ago, can you believe it?) when she's not part of the Eurozone all together!

    It would be the same for me to complain why the EU isn't granted a certain amount of seats in the American Congress, after all some desicions they make could have an effect of European citizens and businesses too.

    Again, you present the world upside down!
     
  21. tamora

    tamora New Member

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    A typically left wing opinion that doesn't really say anything, but reeks of your bigotry. :wink:

    So, how do you explain the EU's own self-interest? The pay, perks and salaries of EU bureaucrats and politicians? The endemic corruption? The total disregard for the jobs and living standards of European citizens?
     
  22. Heroclitus

    Heroclitus Well-Known Member

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    There is politesse and little personal attack, especially as I am known as a bon vivant. The abuse is this garbage that janpor spouts about "les anglo-saxons" being the Great Satan in the modern world. I have a good buddy married to a French woman, with French kids, who mixes almost exclusively with French people. He confirms the same stuff - a protectionist socialism that rails against the neoliberalism of Uncle Sam and his poodle John Bull.

    Germans just get on with making money and designing magnificant pieces of engineering.
     
  23. Heroclitus

    Heroclitus Well-Known Member

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    I just read "the waiter's outlook is quite different..." without seeing the rest of the post and I knew it was Orwell in an instant. I just love reading that stuff. Have you read about the waiter in Keep the Aspidistra Flying? That's delicious. Orwell, a dishwasher, hated the petit bourgeois waiters.
     
  24. Heroclitus

    Heroclitus Well-Known Member

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    I'm not sure what you are saying. I am extremely anti-nationalist. That would be my most hallowed belief. Then I am liberal, in a European sense. I do think Germany has to pay up, as it has benefited, but I sympathize with their reluctance to do so. It should negotiate the best deal to spread the pain between those who have benfited - itself and the high deficit nations. Slovenia should pay nothing.

    But what we wish for may not be the same as the realpolitik. The whole thing is unsatisfactory as the European institutions are wholly undemocratic. Closer union should only happen after democratic reform. Without that it is just a domination by French elitism, which is grounded in chauvinism and protectionism.

    As far as the UK is concerned, it should be inside any organization which emerges. It won't be of course, even if the EU or Eurozone reforms, and that will be due to British folly. But until the EU reforms its governance, British reticence is justifiable.

    And you may be right. The UK could overplay its hand and Germany will support France. That is what the Guardian article I cited was accusing Cameron of. Apparently though this is just part of a great conspiracy by the whole global anglo-saxon media...so there you have it.
     
  25. Paris

    Paris Well-Known Member

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    I think I can agree if your opinion is that a lot of French people are xenophobic and stupid; but I don't think it is a particular French trait. Protectionism, socialism, chauvinism, and whatever you have in store, don't strike me as being French peculiarities, either. Anyway, it sounds a bit odd to me to complain about someone's anglophobia and, in the same breath, rant about the French. We suck, I can admit to that, but I don't believe we necessarily suck more than any other countrymen, as a whole.

    No, I haven't read it. I haven't read Down and Out... either. I remembered this piece because Red had quoted it here, once. I miss Red, btw, he was nice.
     

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