French arrogance over the Euro

The_White_Horse

the people of the UK should be given the referrendum.

although it is pointless - as with all european referrendums, they will keep going until they get the answer they want. scum.

if we were out of europe we could still trade with it.

it is nonsense to suggets otherwise.

Butterfly_Brain

How can we live in a democracy? When party whips can threaten MP's who were elected by us as our representatives so that the ruling part gets its way ?
Milliband is as Tory as Cameron and where is Nick Clegg? Is he still being Camerons footstool?

It is as I have always suspected........ we live in a fauxmocracy and it doesn't matter what the people of this country say.:mad:

When will the likes of Cameron, Milliband and Clegg realise that they are our SERVANTS as in Public servant not our Masters!!!!!

pqrdef

ruggedtoast wrote: »

Sarkozy bluntly told Cameron: "You have lost a good opportunity to shut up." He added: "We are sick of you criticising us and telling us what to do. You say you hate the euro and now you want to interfere in our meetings."

Seems fair enough to me. Cameron does hate the euro, he is constantly criticising them, and he does want to interfere in their meetings. I'd be annoyed too.

This is basically why it's politically impossible to have closer fiscal integration in the eurozone, except by the rest of the EU leaving it altogether.

pqrdef

michaels wrote: »

I thought the headlines would be about the Turkey earthquake or the EUR bailout but somehow the BBC seems to have its own agenda today.

They've got a whole bunch of people hanging around Westminster, and their own little studio, and never any shortage of well-known faces only too keen to be interviewed.

Brussels, zilch. Not much chance of Sarkozy pausing in a foyer to give a BBC man a soundbite.

pqrdef

Incidentally, Dave's hairstyle was getting dangerously close to a mullet, but it's shorter at the back today. Did Angela give him a haircut?

Going4TheDream

The_White_Horse wrote: »

the people of the UK should be given the referrendum.

although it is pointless - as with all european referrendums, they will keep going until they get the answer they want. scum.

if we were out of europe we could still trade with it.

it is nonsense to suggets otherwise.

Perhaps you are right, however the problem is many many people have very little understanding of how Europe works to make an informed decision or little interest

Do you really want people to vote on emotion, perhaps that an 'illegal immigrant got to stay here because he goes to the gym?' or the fact they hate the French or such like?

There was a women who phoned into Radio 2 today and basically said. I dont want a referendum, its not my job to make decisions about stuff I don't know about , that is what we pay our leaders for........

Am I alone in finding it scary that the future of the country could be decided by people who have no interest or no clue?

The_White_Horse

i think if you had a poll of what the nation wants it would overwhelmingly vote to be out of europe. whether that is right or wrong is irrelevant. the govt is elected by the people, for the people. the govt should be acting in accordance with what the nation wants - not in accordance with what it wants. the reason why we will never get a referredum is clear - because they know the public will vote 90% to 10% at worst to leave the EU. The question is, why do they not want to act on what the people want. even dave and hague, two massive eurosceptics will not allow it. it is madness. no one will ever let you have a vote or a say on europe. it is a massive juggernaut that is out of control. the leaders are like ahab. they have a mad agenda to create this vast nonsense and NOTHING will ever stop them. NOTHING. we will never have a say, no one will. it is too late.

pqrdef

The_White_Horse wrote: »

they have a mad agenda to create this vast nonsense and NOTHING will ever stop them.

I know. Just look at the damage they've done already. The bananas are far too straight now, it's practically impossible to buy a properly curly one. And the sausages, they're total crap compared to the sawdust-and-gristle bangers we used to love. I can't remember the last time I had to spit out a chunk of good British gristle.

dtsazza

The_White_Horse wrote: »

i think if you had a poll of what the nation wants it would overwhelmingly vote to be out of europe. whether that is right or wrong is irrelevant.

I understand your point, but I don't think it's entirely right.

The government's role is to run the nation in such a way as to bring about what people want. That isn't the same as doing exactly what people say they want. It's a well-known fact in business that what the customer says the want (via feedback forms, market research etc.) and what they actually want are two very different things.

I think it's fair to say that most people don't have much of a grasp of international politics, or fully understand what's in the treaties that make up our membership of the EU, or understand the ramifications of it to the economy and their continued employment, etc. Any expression of their desires is really just a vague emotion, which it's the government's job to translate into a course of action. Case in point - if you were right about 90% of people wanting to leave, it doesn't necessarily mean that leaving is the right thing. Chances are that you could reform some treaties, and create new ones so as to remove the negative aspects of the EU without losing the positive aspects.

So I think it really does matter whether people are right or wrong on the decision - you take their instinctual utterances, and turn them into the right policy decisions to give them what they want, as opposed to following the crude policy decisions that they think they want.


And besides, if it's as clear as you say that 90% of people want us out, then we don't need the expense of a referendum to find that out - the government can start extricating us immediately.

TruckerT

Generali wrote: »

number 1 A bailout means that money comes from the Government on preferential terms.

number 2 Imagine a bank that is just solvent. It shouldn't make any future profits or losses and has assets worth £50 with 100 shares in issue. Each of those shares are worth 50p of equity each.

Now imagine the Government insists that the bank 'recapitalises' by issuing another 100 shares for which the Government will pay £20.

Now there are 200 shares in issue and the total assets of the bank are £70 so each share is now worth 35p

Thankyou for a useful reply, but I cannot see the difference between number 1 and number 2

In your example (number 2) the government would end up owning 50% of the bank having paid for less than 30% of the bank's assets

But if the alternative is for the banks to fail completely, then how will shareholders benefit by resisting government re-capitalisation?

The banks' directors are, quite understandably, unable to countenance the faintest whiff of nationalisation - such a possibility simply does not exist in their gene pool

But, in present circumstances (which were created in the first place by the banks themselves) we urgently need some genetic engineering

Thr choice is between some form of Socialism/Communism (call it what you will...), and a new form of Capitalism which can be democratically controlled by elected governments

TruckerT