'Should the UK join the Euro?' poll discussion

EnglishBrainIrishHeart

I may be a lemming that thinks like a borg in your eyes, however the simple fact is that my busuness is on course to incur extra charges of £30,000 because of currency fluctuations this financial year. 80% of my business goes to the EU, which whilst I am now more competative in comparision to my EU counterparts, the cost of my Raw materials have cancelled out any benefit the reduction in strength of the £ has brought as I have to buy them in US$ or €. Had we have been in the € then my costs and therfore wholesale prices would not have been affected, nor my bottom line. I am not a big multicorp, but I do run a business on whom 30 people rely on.

I agree that there needs to be a more logical approach to things such a interest rates. However, the worlds largest economy manages with one federal rate, why can't we?

Can I do my business cheaper in another country - too right, but that isn't the point, I provide emplyment to local people and I want that to continue.

I have no desire to surrender to Brussels, and Marvin the Martian has encapsulated my thoughts far better than I can ever do.

Australia does not suffer so much from having its own currency because of the amount of finance it has in SE Asia as a whole and the raft if currencies in use. However, an ongoing debate in New Zealand is to adopt the US$ or the AUS$ in order to strengthen its own economy. Canada suffers againsts the US$ in the same way that we do with fluctuations against the US$ and the €. tangeential but as a snapshot, its top level sports suffer when they are pitted against the US Franchises, why? They operate in Can$ but have to pay their stars in US$ thus creating a fluctuating market reesulting in it being sometimes difficult to compete.

Feel free to be sick of the lemmings that think like the borg like me, but rest assured my thoughts are not derived from tabloid rumours, but from my own experiences. Please feel free to offer more mindless insults as an excuse point out why those with a Pro-Euro leaning are in the wrong. Its what I have come to expect from the raft of Euro-sceptics, the majority of whom are aghast at our so called "surrender" because that is what The Sun/Daily Mail tell them is what they should think.

samtron

"Give me control of a nation's money supply, and I care not who makes its laws."
Mayer Amschel Rothschild.

International bankers do what they want. They take all of our money and continue to get away with what would otherwise be considered criminal activities. Governments are almost helpless to do anything about it. Bankers really dont care about us one little bit. They just want us to be able to keep paying back the interest on the massive amount debt we have with them (all money is debt).

Consider this... If there were no money in England what-so-ever, and the bank lent the first ever £100,000 out at 1% interest (the interest rate), how would we ever pay it back? Its impossible, so we are all enslaved by this debt.

The only way we can ever pay it back, is if the bank print more money (which is inflation). But that money is also lent out at interest, so we can never pay that back either... So more money is printed, and the cycle continues.

This is totally unnecessary, as the founding fathers of the US were quite aware when they started printing their own money and refusing to pay interest to the bank of England. A visit from the Bank of England passed the Currency Act of 1764, which made it illegal for the colonies to print their own money and forced them to pay taxes to the Bank of England.... which as well all know, led to the war of independence (honestly, do you really think it was a tax on tea?)...

To make this even more startling. For every house I ever buy, some banker somewhere that I never met will get one as well, that I will have paid for. And we just accept that.

These are the real issues about banking, not covert racism or how much beer costs.

eurocon

On a recent visit to mainland Greece one thing I really noticed was the use of the euro currency when compared to the UK currency.

I have no doubt that should we enter the euro we will see at least a 10% to 20% increase in the cost of living.

One startling observation I made was with the use of the euro currency notes, in that I had 100 and 200 euro notes equivalent to a £90 and £180 sterling note. I found that these were readily accepted by all traders, shops and restaurants for small purchases of as little as 5 euros for a couple of coffees in a small bar.

I was astonished by this as I did not get the usual UK quip "haven't you got anything smaller"?

Try to purchase something in the UK with a £50 note if you can find one and suffer the abuse you get for trying to use one.

Every day things in the euro zone are more expensive and the free use of high denomination currency notes bears this out.

Can you imagine offering the cashier a £180 note for two coffees at Starbucks?

mcgazz

> Once we have the Euro, they will force pubs to sell half litres rather than pints etc.

Who gives a toss? Losing illogical medieval units of measurement can only be a positive thing. Beer, cider and milk are now the only things sold in pints.

If we don't throw our lot in with Europe, we'll have to hitch ourselves to that sinking ship across the Atlantic. And a American pint is less than half a litre ;-)

[Deleted User]

> Can you imagine offering the cashier a £180 note for two coffees at Starbucks?

Don't many people hand over a Visa Debit card anyway?

Also, bear in mind that the pound has declined sharply against the euro lately - that £90 note you refer to was only around £75 not so long ago. And I'm not entirely sure why the banks in this country feel that it's better for people to have rainforests of £20s in their wallets instead of fewer £50s (and I've seen this often, particularly amongst tradesmen), but I rather doubt that the denominations of notes in common usage determine the rate of inflation, somehow. If you ask me, the BoE should get with the times, start sticking £50s in ATMs, and start thinking about a £100 note. It's long overdue. (Though anyone who works for the companies that stock the ATMs probably won't thank me for advocating making their job more difficult.)

ihatebt_2

It's all part of the new world order. Just another step to a one-world government.

RogerBruton

Why not just go for it?!?! Join the euro! If you don't like the sound of it just call them "pounds"! They are worth about the same anyway!!

[Deleted User]

ihatebt wrote: »

It's all part of the new world order. Just another step to a one-world government.

Your distinctiveness will be added to our own. Resistance is futile.

Alantheaged

Just a note from history on MarvintheMartians suggestion that the denomination of the currency doesn't affect inflation.
Those of us old enough to remember decimilisation of coins in 1970 something - 2? - will recall that it set off the biggest round up since Ned Kelly. I have no doubt that changing to the Euro especially at a rate other than 1 would lead to many "opportunities" being taken to uplift prices while we got used to the new currency in exactly the same way as happened with decimilisation. This would give a big increase in inflation at least for the first few months.
Apart from that, if we stick with the pound, at least we can control it in the UK and change it to specifically help our economy. I can't imagine the Eurozone going out of its way specifically to assist the UK if it meant others suffering. I would suspect it would actually be the other way!

[Deleted User]

Alantheaged wrote: »

Just a note from history on MarvintheMartians suggestion that the denomination of the currency doesn't affect inflation.
Those of us old enough to remember decimilisation of coins in 1970 something - 2? - will recall that it set off the biggest round up since Ned Kelly.

Well, that's actually a different issue to the one I was focusing on in my previous post. I was challenging the notion that the mere existence of higher-denomination notes increases prices, which is what the poster above me appeared to be suggesting. I don't accept the idea that if the BoE started printing more £50s and started issuing £100s, prices would suddenly rise as a result.

I have no doubt that changing to the Euro especially at a rate other than 1 would lead to many "opportunities" being taken to uplift prices while we got used to the new currency in exactly the same way as happened with decimilisation. This would give a big increase in inflation at least for the first few months.

There may be some rounding effect in the case of staple goods - though this may go both ways, and we're all susceptible to the cognitive bias that we're more likely to remember the unpleasant surprise of something being rounded up than the pleasant one of an item being rounded down.

However, there's one significant difference between possible euro entry and the decimalization of the Seventies: we wouldn't be switching to an entirely new currency, but to an existing, established one. This has a significant implication for a large number of goods, because not only can we already compare like with like now, but we'd also be able to compare them directly post-conversion. As such, it would be rather more noticeable if they tried charging a significantly higher price for a product here than that which they charged elsewhere in the EU.

As such, I'd suggest that the drivers of inflation as a result of currency conversion are perhaps not nearly so great as they might have been during decimalization.

Apart from that, if we stick with the pound, at least we can control it in the UK and change it to specifically help our economy. I can't imagine the Eurozone going out of its way specifically to assist the UK if it meant others suffering. I would suspect it would actually be the other way!

I'm not so sure about that, for two reasons. One, I'm not actually all that convinced that the notion that "we" control "our own" currency is much more than a romantic fiction anymore. Two, we are one of the 'Big Three', and as such, if our economy were in trouble, and if the ECB didn't take the appropriate steps, the entire Eurozone economy could find itself in trouble.

The problem might be that the ECB may find itself torn in different directions if, for instance, Germany's economy was out of step with ours, and we desperately needed an interest rate rise whilst they desperately needed a cut, or vice versa.

And that, I think, that's the ¤64,000 question (to keep it currency-neutral!) - are our economies sufficiently convergent that joining the Euro wouldn't either tear the Eurozone apart or create a huge economic mess. On that, I would have to steal a line from Isaac Asimov and say: Insufficient data for a meaningful answer.