O/T EU Vote In/Out

[Aldo1983]

I lived in Greece for a couple of years around the time the Euro was introduced. Every single main infrastructure program from the airport to the new roads and metro were awarded to German companies with vast amounts of EU funding. The tax receipts from these companies went straight back to the German exchequer or German banks through loans
.
Now Greece is left to clear up it's mess while the EU impose tax and welfare reforms that the Greek economy cannot cope with. The direct result of the EU intervention is mass unemployment with families now so poor the church is overwhelmed with new born babies and children who are bei g given up by parents who think the riches of the church will give them a better life. The richer families send their kids abroad as soon as they finish school.

I will vote leave because there are no guarantees that at some point in the future the EU won't impose similar tariffs to the UK ,for me we are better out and let democracy decide what the politicians can and cannot impose on the British people.

I was in Athens not so long ago and I was speaking to a few locals who were raging about owing the Germans so much money for the road and airport. especially since the road is near a graveyard for the locals they massacred.

I felt sorry for them then starting hearing from a taxi driver who bought his flat for €400k whilst paying little tax.

It is indeed a messy one but they play a major part in their own downfall.

Valencia is the prime example of taking the Piss.

[Barnared]

Phuk Greece. I'm not having that poor Greece malarkey. They phukin lied through their teeth to get in, albeit as the EU weren't looking too hard but they've got nobody to blame but themselves.

I was in Spain when things went t!ts up there too. Again, they're to blame for that themselves.

The thing is that these countries, Italy included, in years gone by would simply devalue the phuk out of their currencies as a short term fix to get themselves out of their messes, which was a frequent occurence but it never solved their problems and continually held them back. It could be argued that the inability to do that is actually going to help them in the long run.

[LED]

But thats the point Barnared. The EU looked the other way when the books didn't balance and let Greece in anyway. They also did the same for Spain and Italy. All for the political cause of the EU and at the expense of its citizens. And by citizens I mean all member states including us. Who's to say that the EU won't at some point in the future do it to us?

The main problem with the EU is it's a Political Union without any monetory or financial unity. Just look at the zones that have the Euro and then you have those that don't. All working to different rules while trying to pretend that the are actually all behaving within a set of rules that nobody actually knows exist. For example debt to GDP ratio.

[Getintaethem]

Barnared, not only is your post morally wrong, it is also economically wrong and historically wrong.

Morally wrong - Where is all the togetherness that we heard from the Remain camp in your "Phuk Greece" statement. It is now a them and us situation? At the end of WW2, the Germans had massive debt. So much that they could not be expected to pay it back without huge turmoil in the country. WW2 was Germany's fault. What did the allies do? They wrote off 50% of the debt and let the Germans pay the rest back over a huge period of time. What happened, the German economy rose from the ashes to be the biggest success story in Europe. Their is no debt write off with Greece. In fact, the EU is adding debt onto Greece. One of the reasons is that the big banks mainly in France but in other countries such as Germany had a huge financial exposure to Greece. (yep... the EU is in cahoots with big business and big banks).

Economically wrong - Normally when governments with their own currencies borrow too much the cost of borrowing increases in the international markets. Therefore, they stop borrowing as much. In the Euro, every country had the same cost of borrowing so they could go on borrowing at the same low rates as Germany. This is a fundamental flaw with the Euro. In order for it to work there needs to be a single policies on all government activity throughout the EU, a single tax and spend policy throughout Europe for all countries. i.e. borrowing is controlled centrally and countries are only allowed to spend what they are told they can. This is why there will be more unification of countries and more central control to the EU.

Where did you get that Greece needing to pay back all this debt would be good for the country. The opposite happened with Germany and other countries that defaulted on debts or had debts written off. These countries got back on their feet quicker, interest rates on their loans were high because they were seen as a risk and therefore these countries did not borrow above their ability to pay. The fact is changing monetary policy in order to counter issues in the economy is well understood as being critical to getting a country out of recession. Before they joined the Euro there was meant to be harmonisation of the economies across the currency zone. Clearly there was no such thing. Being in the Euro means that they cannot change monetary policy (increase/reduce interest rates, devalue the currency etc.). There is a comparison with the US here where there is a monetary union. The monetary policy is set by Washington for the industrial zones (eastern and western sea borders on the whole). The south should have had lower interest rates for decades and a lower exchange rate than the rest of the US in order to stimulate the economy but as part of the union they cannot and they have been relatively poorer to the richer parts of the Union since the civil war. Incidentally, the same could be said for the UK where the north of england and scotland could have historically benefited from a different monetary policy to the South East of England.

Historically wrong - the Greek Government did not accept their application to the Euro. It was the EU. There was meant to be monetary harmonisation but for political reasons this was swept under the carpet. This is not said in hindsight, there were plenty of economists saying that the economies were not harmonised but the EU decided that anyone in the EU could join the Euro for political reasons. Perhaps the EU's internet was down for 5 years before the Euro was introduced and they did not hear this? Which country was denied entry? If you apply for a mortgage it is the responsibility of the bank to check that what you say is true. They look at your bank statements for example. Same with the EU... did they not check? Did they not know? Ofcourse they did and they knew exactly what the position was before accepting Greece into the EU.

Now did Greece do nothing wrong? Ofcourse they did. They spent spent spent on cheap credit until the credit crunch. But where were all the "independent experts" (them again) telling them to stop? Yep the experts were wrong then and they are wrong now.

[LED]

Barnared, not only is your post morally wrong, it is also economically wrong and historically wrong.

Morally wrong - Where is all the togetherness that we heard from the Remain camp in your "Phuk Greece" statement. It is now a them and us situation? At the end of WW2, the Germans had massive debt. So much that they could not be expected to pay it back without huge turmoil in the country. WW2 was Germany's fault. What did the allies do? They wrote off 50% of the debt and let the Germans pay the rest back over a huge period of time. What happened, the German economy rose from the ashes to be the biggest success story in Europe. Their is no debt write off with Greece. In fact, the EU is adding debt onto Greece. One of the reasons is that the big banks mainly in France but in other countries such as Germany had a huge financial exposure to Greece. (yep... the EU is in cahoots with big business and big banks).

Economically wrong - Normally when governments with their own currencies borrow too much the cost of borrowing increases in the international markets. Therefore, they stop borrowing as much. In the Euro, every country had the same cost of borrowing so they could go on borrowing at the same low rates as Germany. This is a fundamental flaw with the Euro. In order for it to work there needs to be a single policies on all government activity throughout the EU, a single tax and spend policy throughout Europe for all countries. i.e. borrowing is controlled centrally and countries are only allowed to spend what they are told they can. This is why there will be more unification of countries and more central control to the EU.

Where did you get that Greece needing to pay back all this debt would be good for the country. The opposite happened with Germany and other countries that defaulted on debts or had debts written off. These countries got back on their feet quicker, interest rates on their loans were high because they were seen as a risk and therefore these countries did not borrow above their ability to pay. The fact is changing monetary policy in order to counter issues in the economy is well understood as being critical to getting a country out of recession. Before they joined the Euro there was meant to be harmonisation of the economies across the currency zone. Clearly there was no such thing. Being in the Euro means that they cannot change monetary policy (increase/reduce interest rates, devalue the currency etc.). There is a comparison with the US here where there is a monetary union. The monetary policy is set by Washington for the industrial zones (eastern and western sea borders on the whole). The south should have had lower interest rates for decades and a lower exchange rate than the rest of the US in order to stimulate the economy but as part of the union they cannot and they have been relatively poorer to the richer parts of the Union since the civil war. Incidentally, the same could be said for the UK where the north of england and scotland could have historically benefited from a different monetary policy to the South East of England.

Historically wrong - the Greek Government did not accept their application to the Euro. It was the EU. There was meant to be monetary harmonisation but for political reasons this was swept under the carpet. This is not said in hindsight, there were plenty of economists saying that the economies were not harmonised but the EU decided that anyone in the EU could join the Euro for political reasons. Perhaps the EU's internet was down for 5 years before the Euro was introduced and they did not hear this? Which country was denied entry? If you apply for a mortgage it is the responsibility of the bank to check that what you say is true. They look at your bank statements for example. Same with the EU... did they not check? Did they not know? Ofcourse they did and they knew exactly what the position was before accepting Greece into the EU.

Now did Greece do nothing wrong? Ofcourse they did. They spent spent spent on cheap credit until the credit crunch. But where were all the "independent experts" (them again) telling them to stop? Yep the experts were wrong then and they are wrong now.

That is a fantastic post. Spot on

[Brian Grantland]

Since the UK joined the European Economic Community in 1973, Britain has done relatively well, outperforming the EU’s largest economies, Germany, France and Italy – and the US.
FACT

Cost of membership to UK exchequer in 2015
8,473bn (net)
Considerably less than £350m per week...

[TheDeeDon]

The shyte from the politicians will be ramped up in the last couple of days all the great and corrupt in our society will be out telling us the dangers of breaking away. It will be a remain win come Thursday IMO, but the margin of their success is going to be interesting, they really need around 70% of the vote, in my opinion, for this to go away. If it is a narrow win for remain the tory part will turn on itself so could be interesting times, just a pity there is no real opposition to rip them to bits.

[Getintaethem]

Since the UK joined the European Economic Community in 1973, Britain has done relatively well, outperforming the EU’s largest economies, Germany, France and Italy – and the US.
FACT

Cost of membership to UK exchequer in 2015
8,473bn (net)
Considerably less than £350m per week...

Oh I love a good FACT

So, we have outperformed the US. So, exactly, which of the 300 odd stats that are used to measure the economy are you using? If we look at real GDP figures, for example, the growth in the US economy has been over 300% and the growth in the UK economy has been less than 240% since 1973.

I suppose our exports to Germany and the rest of Europe are doing well by increasing whereas the US exports to Germany and the rest of Europe are reducing... cos the US is outside of the EU and therefore by definition they would never be doing better than us trading with the EU. Damn pesky FACTS

[Brian Grantland]

growth in real gdp per capita

[Getintaethem]

growth in real gdp per capita

This is where your whole FACT falls down. You cannot and should not look at one stat in isolation. Most people would say that China has outperformed the UK over the past few years as GDP has been huge. But GDP per capita is tiny in comparison to the UK's and wealth disparity is even larger. Comparing one stat from one country against another country is what politicians do to make political points... its called spin. It is also easier to get larger percentage increases in GDP per capita over a period of time when you are comparing relatively poorer countries to richer ones.

There are many problems with GDP per capita (does not include assets (houses, stocks etc.), the black economy, wages or wealth distribution) and even more problems when trying to compare GDP per capita between countries. The black economy in Italy is estimated to be around 30%, for example, in comparison to the UK's 5%. Even worse when you do it in isolation of all the other economic, historical and social differences between countries.

So, it is not really a FACT, its more an opinion with the backing of one statistic in isolation that in of itself does not compare apples with apples.

Even if you were right and we have experienced higher growth in comparison to the US and other countries in the EU, this does not prove that this happened because we were in the EU. Our growth could have been the same or larger outside the EU. No one knows for sure as we cannot both be in and out of the EU at the same time and therefore this is not a FACT either.