The crash is coming.

[woolley]

1 hour ago, Non-Believer said:

Don't know if that's entirely true Woolster? The EU imposes fiscal rectitude as part of Euro membership. Members have a duty to apply it as a responsibility to other Eurozone members. Some say the conditions imposed on Greece as part of rhe bailouts were harsh (I'm not disputing it). But Greece wanted to stay in the Euro too.

But when you check out the Greek fiscal conduct leading up to the crisis they arguably brought it upon themselves. They hadn't collected due taxes on a massive basis for years and had misled the EU as to the state of the national finances on application. Why should other Euro members have to pay for that sort of conduct?

I totally agree, NB. Why indeed should taxpayers in other countries pay for mismanagement elsewhere? The EU prescribes fiscal rectitude, right enough, but it appears to impose it only after default, when it's too late.

Where we may differ is on the basic premise that these rules can hold good across such diverse economies in the long term. I don't think it's viable, and experience is bearing this out; hence Greece, hence Ireland, hence Portugal, Spain and Cyprus. Where next? It stokes up animosity in the contributing states who see the struggling countries as feckless, and in the debtor states who see their lenders as hegemonic rather than altruistic. What was designed as a benign elixir to bind countries together has turned into noxious potion setting them at each other's throats. Much was glossed over in the design for political expediency. In another age Greece would have simply devalued the drachma and nobody elsewhere would have so much as blinked.

I do wonder if they could go back 40 years, how many of the architects of ERM and eventually the single currency would do the same again. I appreciate that fortunes have been made, mainly by the likes of Soros, and political reputations burnished, but at what cost?

[P.K.]

1 minute ago, woolley said:

I totally agree, NB. Why indeed should taxpayers in other countries pay for mismanagement elsewhere? The EU prescribes fiscal rectitude, right enough, but it appears to impose it only after default, when it's too late.

What utter tosh.

Try telling that to the Italians......

But that's the danger of populist movements. They promise all sorts whilst being somewhat economical with the truth as concerns delivering on those promises made.

Sound familiar?

It should....

[woolley]

2 minutes ago, P.K. said:

What utter tosh.

Try telling that to the Italians......

OK then, PK. When it's ALMOST too late, if you prefer. I've been telling you for years what the strictures of the EU (and globalisation of course) have done to its southern states. I've watched on the ground as areas of Greece, Italy and Spain have sunken further and further into despair. Generations without hope. It's really quite shocking. And people who are proponents of the union that has led to this debacle then tell me I'm an uncaring right winger. You couldn't make it up.

[P.K.]

17 hours ago, woolley said:

OK then, PK. When it's ALMOST too late, if you prefer. I've been telling you for years what the strictures of the EU (and globalisation of course) have done to its southern states. I've watched on the ground as areas of Greece, Italy and Spain have sunken further and further into despair. Generations without hope. It's really quite shocking. And people who are proponents of the union that has led to this debacle then tell me I'm an uncaring right winger. You couldn't make it up.

You keep coming up with this as an excuse for your hatred of all things EU.

As you rightly say there are various forces at play here. So-called "strictures" of the EU, globalisation of course etc etc but you seem to conveniently forget their own sovereign governments. If we take the UK as an example the "sovereignty" card much beloved by Brexiteers everywhere is, of course, a complete and utter nonsense. Farage et al were claiming that something like 75% of UK legislation was due to falling in line with EU "policies" but the HoC Library produced the figures that showed it was a mere 13% and it was nothing to do with "policies" at all. Rather it was about food standards and so forth such as "you can't use these damaging pesticides", "you can't use these hormones",  "shipping containers should be this size and design", "provenance must be available", " no gm" etc etc.

So who and what has caused these issues you keep banging on about? I first started visiting Spain in the late seventies and you only had to go a few miles inland from the coast to find real and stark poverty.. That's less than forty years ago....

 

[Albert Tatlock]

There's always a crash coming. The best way of coping is to buy your big purchases when they have just happened and plan your retirement between them.