Brexit slowly becoming a Farce.

[Detournement]

The Lisbon treaty and the fiscal rules it contains are a noose around the neck of the EU.

 

[Buddist Monk]

2 minutes ago, Detournement said:

The Lisbon treaty and the fiscal rules it contains are a noose around the neck of the EU.

Sort of yes and sort of no. The issue regarding Corbyn is that he has a legacy of anti-EU voting. To try and spin it in any other way is insulting to everyone.

[git-intae-thum]

I agree that all this needs ironed out prior to the start of the next referendum campaign.

The more time business, the markets and the general population have to get used to a properly thought out plan, the better all round.

It is a tactical error I feel on the part of the SNP to continue using  phrases like "keep the pound." and "its our pound too." You would think they would have learnt something from indyref1. 

Its stupid. It allows unionists to continually throw bombs of doubt and dissent, and thus bamboozle the cranially challenged and auld duffers.

In contrast britnats trying to belittle a Scottish currency, would be more likely in the longer term to annoy Scottish voters.

We can call it whatever....pound, dollar, Scotmark......we just need to get the idea planted and firm plan published allowing time to get used to the idea.

Of course having our own currency from day one, need not negate the softly softly approach. I believe it was Buddhist Monk that suggested it, but the transition can be gradual and contain a period of currency pairing. So in effect we would be sharing the pound short term but just negating any britnat spin.

Such short term pairing would work as the initial stabilty would be in Scottish and rUK interests.

[Detournement]

9 minutes ago, Buddist Monk said:

Sort of yes and sort of no. The issue regarding Corbyn is that he has a legacy of anti-EU voting. To try and spin it in any other way is insulting to everyone.

And the EU has a track record of fucking over it's citizens in favour of bankers and corporations.

[Buddist Monk]

10 minutes ago, Detournement said:

And the EU has a track record of fucking over it's citizens in favour of bankers and corporations.

It's glib broad brush and inaccurate statements like that which gets us nowhere. The EU is far from perfect, but why don't you list this so called track record.

[Buddist Monk]

21 minutes ago, git-intae-thum said:

We can call it whatever....pound, dollar, Scotmark......we just need to get the idea planted and firm plan published allowing time to get used to the idea.

Completely agree with what you said, although it would be the pound, the Scottish pound. It was our currency for 500 years!

[Detournement]

5 minutes ago, Buddist Monk said:

It's glib broad brush and inaccurate statements like that which gets us nowhere. The EU is far from perfect, but why don't you list this so called track record.

Greece for a start. Rather than support Greek citizens they choose to support French and German banks and pay them in the blood of ordinary Greeks.
 

Quote

In this short report, we present the last 14-year trends (2001 to 2014) of births and deaths in Greece (Table). Over the six years of the crisis (2009 – 2014), the crude birth rate substantially decreased between 2009 and 2014; from 10.45 per 1,000 population in 2009 to 8.57 in 2014 (Table). The 93,429 livebirths in 2014 is the lowest number recorded in Greece since 1955 (the first year for which reliable data are available). During the same period (2009 – 2014), the crude mortality rate in Greece increased, from 9.60 per 1,000 population in 2009 to 10.46 in 2014 (Table). In 2012 and 2014, there were 116,670 and deaths 114,088 respectively, the highest numbers since 1948. The result of these two opposing trends was an excess of 59,285 more deaths than births over the last four years (2010 – 2014) (for comparison, Rhodes island according to the 2011 Census has a population of around 50,000 inhabitants).

 

Criminal. There are plenty of other easily searchable reports about the effects on mental health and addiction as well.

https://www.bmj.com/content/347/bmj.f6639/rr-0

[welshbairn]

54 minutes ago, WhiteRoseKillie said:

 Corbyn did not "run a weak campaign" - he was all over the country during the run up to the referendum. Unfortunately, he didn't have control over what was, or more importantly was not broadcast or published.
 

He refused nearly every invitation to TV or radio interviews and on his rare appearances was apathetic. And ever since he has supported the Government in every vote on the path to Brexit.

Edited September 11, 2018 by welshbairn

[Detournement]

http://piketty.blog.lemonde.fr/2018/07/10/europe-migrants-and-trade/

Quote

There is a third fact that is worth bearing in mind alongside the first two. According to the most recent ECB (European Central Bank) data the trade surplus of the Euro zone stood at 530 billion Euros in 2017, or almost 5% of the GDP of the Euro zone (11,200 billion Euros) and the trend is the same in 2018. In other words, each time the countries in the Euro zone produce 100 units of goods and services, they only consume and invest 95 in their own country. The gap may seem narrow but, repeated year by year, it is in reality considerable. Never in economic history, or at least never since the existence of trade statistics (that is, since the beginning of the 19^th century) have we found evidence of such a huge trade surplus for an economy of this size.

The ECB and those who direct it are deliberately pauperizing Eurozone citizens with the poorest and weakest worst affected.

[Buddist Monk]

1 minute ago, Detournement said:

Greece for a start. Rather than support Greek citizens they choose to support French and German banks and pay them in the blood of ordinary Greeks.
 

Criminal. There are plenty of other easily searchable reports about the effects on mental health and addiction as well.

https://www.bmj.com/content/347/bmj.f6639/rr-0

If we are talking Greece we are talking a completely different thing, and that in no way backs up your claim that the EU "has a track record of fucking over it's citizens in favour of bankers and corporations."

This is all about the Eurozone, and the imbalance it caused when economies which were not ready to join were rushed into it. Once instability happens the levers to control the economy are considerably weakened at a national level.

I could go into depth regarding the failures (and the positives) of the Euro. It's not really anything to do with Brexit or Scottish independence though.

[Detournement]

We were talking about the EU. They chose to f**k over the Greek people to bail out the banks. That ideology is why Corbyn is cool on the EU (and also why people like Blair, Clegg and Osborne love it).

[Buddist Monk]

11 minutes ago, Detournement said:

They chose to f**k over the Greek people to bail out the banks. That ideology is why Corbyn is cool on the EU (and also why people like Blair, Clegg and Osborne love it).

You quite simply couldn't be more wrong there. The massive mistake was allowing Greece and several other countries into the Eurozone when they were not ready for it. This was from hubris on the part of the EU. However once in the Eurozone they need to keep to certain financial targets of which they were unable to. You seem to think that this is some sort of agenda against Greece, but if they were to continue to lending to Greece they would in turn be hurting all the rest of the Eurozone. This was Hobson's Choice with Greece on one side and the rest of the Eurozone on the other.

The trope that it was a German led assault on Greece is the sort of right wing bullshit perpetuated by the likes of Golden Dawn - the well known racist fuckwits who spread lie after lie after lie. Not unlike UKIP or the Front Nationale.

 

And I say again, it in no way supports your claim that the EU has a history of fucking over it's citizens in favour of banks. If that was the case why introduce the Euro? That in itself cost the banks millions as there was currency transparency the length and breadth of the union.

 

Edited September 11, 2018 by Buddist Monk

[Detournement]

1 minute ago, Buddist Monk said:

You quite simply couldn't be more wrong there. The massive mistake was allowing Greece and several other countries into the Eurozone when they were not ready for it. This was from hubris on the part of the EU. However once in the Eurozone they need to keep to certain financial targets of which they were unable to. You seem to think that this is some sort of agenda against Greece, but if they were to continue to lending to Greece they would in turn be hurting all the rest of the Eurozone. This was Hobson's Choice with Greece on one side and the rest of the Eurozone on the other.

The trope that it was a German led assault on Greece is the sort of right wing bullshit perpetuated by the likes of Golden Dawn - the well known racist fuckwits who spread lie after lie after lie. Not unlike UKIP or the Front Nationale

 

There is a well documented left critique of the Troika program in Greece so there's no need for nonsense about Golden Dawn.

You are correct that mistakes were made prior to the crash but i'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the punitive measures used since 2011 to collectively punish the Greek people and enrich French and German banks. These policies caused tens of thousands of excess deaths and were completely unnecessary. The EU chose to kill it's citizens for the sake of financial institutions.

[welshbairn]

Greece got into the mess they did by voting for Governments who faked their economic stats to defraud the rest of the EU and associated institutions, and allowed them to pay out far more and tax far less than they should have been. I think it could have been handled better but I don't see why the other 27 countries should have bailed them out totally after managing to keep their own books in order.

[Buddist Monk]

5 minutes ago, Detournement said:

 The EU chose to kill it's citizens for the sake of financial institutions.

Wrong, and you've provided absolutely no evidence to prove that.

[Detournement]

2 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

Greece got into the mess they did by voting for Governments who faked their economic stats to defraud the rest of the EU and associated institutions, and allowed them to pay out far more and tax far less than they should have been. I think it could have been handled better but I don't see why the other 27 countries should have bailed them out totally after managing to keep their own books in order.

They shouldn't have bailed Greece out. They should have allowed them to default on the debts they had run up but theydidn't because that would have hurt the banks.

The Greeks deserved it narrative is disgusting. Our democracies aren't based on citizens being active participants in technical monetary policy or even being able to understand it. Saying the Greek people deserved it is the equivalent to telling someone dying of MSRA in a dirty hospital that they deserve it due to political choices made in the UK.

Other options were available to the EU. Syriza are as bad for going along with it post Oxi.

 

[Detournement]

4 minutes ago, Buddist Monk said:

Wrong, and you've provided absolutely no evidence to prove that.

Are you incapable of reading this

 

Quote

In this short report, we present the last 14-year trends (2001 to 2014) of births and deaths in Greece (Table). Over the six years of the crisis (2009 – 2014), the crude birth rate substantially decreased between 2009 and 2014; from 10.45 per 1,000 population in 2009 to 8.57 in 2014 (Table). The 93,429 livebirths in 2014 is the lowest number recorded in Greece since 1955 (the first year for which reliable data are available). During the same period (2009 – 2014), the crude mortality rate in Greece increased, from 9.60 per 1,000 population in 2009 to 10.46 in 2014 (Table). In 2012 and 2014, there were 116,670 and deaths 114,088 respectively, the highest numbers since 1948. The result of these two opposing trends was an excess of 59,285 more deaths than births over the last four years (2010 – 2014) (for comparison, Rhodes island according to the 2011 Census has a population of around 50,000 inhabitants).

The mortality rate jumped by 10% in 5 years due to austerity.

[welshbairn]

4 minutes ago, Detournement said:

They shouldn't have bailed Greece out. They should have allowed them to default on the debts they had run up but theydidn't because that would have hurt the banks.

The Greeks deserved it narrative is disgusting. Our democracies aren't based on citizens being active participants in technical monetary policy or even being able to understand it. Saying the Greek people deserved it is the equivalent to telling someone dying of MSRA in a dirty hospital that they deserve it due to political choices made in the UK.

Other options were available to the EU. Syriza are as bad for going along with it post Oxi.

 

What options? Stepping aside and watching them go bankrupt?

Edited September 11, 2018 by welshbairn

[Buddist Monk]

1 minute ago, Detournement said:

Are you incapable of reading this

 

The mortality rate jumped by 10% in 5 years due to austerity.

That isn't proof buddy, and it's absolutely no evidence that it was a malicious act by the EU in some way to intentionally harm the citizens of a member country.

 

See the people who slate the EU over Greece, they tend to have a very limited understanding of the Greek economy, from the military junta of the 70s to the modern day. To be financially responsible you need to dot the i's and cross the t's. There is a huge psyche difference between Northern and Southern Europe. In Italy, Spain, Greece you were regularly asked by local businesses if you wanted to pay the tax. If you did they'd charge you more and there was no guarantee it was passed on so the vast majority of people didn't. When the Greeks were allowed into the Eurozone it was based on reports that simply did not cover the gap between what it should have in comparison to what they did have. This was manageable until the financial crisis hit and suddenly any leeway was lost.

It should be noted, and I disagree with it although I understand why it was needed, that every government bailed out their banks. From the US to the UK to the EU to Asia. The idea that EU acted alone and with malice is simply not reflecting a true picture of the time.

I hate that the banks got a free pass, and I hate that they have done very little to reward the people for the shit they put us through, it is unfortunately part of the global economy that we currently live in.

[Detournement]

3 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

What options? Stepping aside and watching them go bankrupt?

Writing down the debt and giving them fiscal support.

Instead they enforced austerity crippling the economy and driving 8% of the population (mainly the young and graduates) to leave the country. They then sold off just about every state asset they could and raised taxes and cut spending. The result is an economy that is 1/3rd smaller than in 2010 and debt which has went up and now sits at 170% of GDP. The debt is now owed to the ECB and the IMF ie the French and German banks got away scot free.

Anyone with a brain can see that the debt is never going to be paid. It will eventually have to be written off, which is what should have been done from the start with the avoidance of huge numbers of deaths and untold misery.