Debate on sorting the EU economy out!

MrRee_2

The greatest economic minds in the world are pondering the EU Crisis - and some Internet Jockeys on here think they have the answer.

HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR ...... for what it's worth - even with my superior intelligence, I'm not even going to attempt to tell anyone in the EU what to do!!

CKhalvashi

ChiefGrasscutter wrote: »

To act as a single country you have to reach the situation where you start to have similar cultural attitudes, a common language and all the rest of the things that go with being a single entity......such as common legal, fiscal, politital, economic. taxation systems.

However as most EU law is based on the same thing, do we not feel that this is somewhat the case already.

With regard to some EU nationals paying NI in their country of origin, if we simplified the system, almost cutting out NI altogether, introducing two taxes for qualifying companies; 30% income tax above £10k, 20% tax on profit over £100k (for companies), then there’s a tiered system of a 56% of profit take-home for company directors above £100k, it would (IMO) cut out the corruption significantly, whilst encouraging employers to take staff on.

Procrastinator333 wrote: »

Don't disagree with that, but it all needs to happen along with a full default.

And a default is guaranteed. The only thing that remains is the argument over whether Greece is pushed out, or if it chooses to leave. Greek politicians will want to be pushed out - it then gives them someone else to blame for the mess that will follow.

A default is not 100% guaranteed, however whilst it would ease the pressure in the short-term, the long-term effect could lead further into poverty, especially if there is a gap in the budget.

MrRee wrote: »

The greatest economic minds in the world are pondering the EU Crisis - and some Internet Jockeys on here think they have the answer.

HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR ...... for what it's worth - even with my superior intelligence, I'm not even going to attempt to tell anyone in the EU what to do!!

Get back to the daily mail :eek:

Thrugelmir

CKhalvashi wrote: »

With regard to some EU nationals paying NI in their country of origin, if we simplified the system, almost cutting out NI altogether, introducing two taxes for qualifying companies; 30% income tax above £10k, 20% tax on profit over £100k (for companies), then there’s a tiered system of a 56% of profit take-home for company directors above £100k, it would (IMO) cut out the corruption significantly, whilst encouraging employers to take staff on.

The world is global. Europe no longer holds the power, financially at least. 20 years ago you would be correct. Since then a further 2.5 billion people have joined the global work force. Many want those European jobs for themselves.

chewmylegoff

pqrdef wrote: »

You mean, go back to a subsistence farming economy? We all scratch a living on our allotments? There won't be any taxes, but I suppose they can tithe our turnips.

No, I mean cut taxes in half so people want to do business here and everyone has more money to spend and stop wasting money on nonsense*. Obviously a lot of people would get screwed but I don't really care about them so...


* = by nonsense I mean universally free healthcare, never ending benefits for people who can work but don't work, foreign aid, nuclear missiles, charity donations made using taxpayers money and pretty much every quango that exists.

CKhalvashi

Thrugelmir wrote: »

The world is global. Europe no longer holds the power, financially at least. 20 years ago you would be correct. Since then a further 2.5 billion people have joined the global work force. Many want those European jobs for themselves.

So, whilst we’re creating enough vacancies to fill the unemployed already, a simplified system, additional workload and demand for British speakers (which IS already there) could possibly create this.

We need to fill the vacancies with EU workers first, though.

LydiaJ

CKhalvashi wrote: »

Europe needs to have the same political aims and same financial aims for us to get anywhere with getting out of this recession.

CKhalvashi wrote: »

However as most EU law is based on the same thing, do we not feel that this is somewhat the case already.

No, I don't think we do. It's all very well saying that the nations of Europe "need to" have the same aims, but that doesn't make it so. The nations of Europe have wildly disparate ideas about what politics is for, and how it's done. They also have legal systems that have differing fundamental bases - the adversarial and the inquisitorial, I'm told. The differences go on and on.

The individual people of Europe also have a deeply ingrained dislike of being told what to do by people whom we have no power to vote out of office. We may differ in our ways of expressing this dislike - whether by protesting and wanting exemptions (as we British tend to do) or by signing up to the thing and then not actually complying with it (as some other nations do).

I agree with Thrugelmir and The J on this one. To work sustainably, monetary union would have to come after fiscal union, and fiscal union would have to come after political union, not the cart-before-horse way they've tried to do it over the last few decades.

I also agree with vivatifosi about the remoteness and irrelevance of the political ruling elite. For political union to work at all here, it would need to be democratic political union - with power centred in the European parliament rather than the unelected commission. Western Europe is a collection of nations that have spent the last few thousand years fighting wars every so often, generally when one bunch of Europeans wanted to impose their own rule on some other Europeans and the others wanted to remain free to rule themselves. It has a different emphasis from the American national self-image of "the land of the free" but it's a powerful cultural reality, all the same. Remember, the US may be huge, but they all elect their president, and they all feel that he is "their" president, in a way that I doubt any European of any nationality feels about any of the commissioners currently attempting to rule Europe's destiny.

Procrastinator333

CKhalvashi wrote: »

A default is not 100% guaranteed, however whilst it would ease the pressure in the short-term, the long-term effect could lead further into poverty, especially if there is a gap in the budget.

There is zero, absolutely zero chance of both the politicians and the Greek people finding the willpower to do what would be required to avoid default. The only other option to default was the Germans picking up the tab, but that boat has sailed. So they are left with default.

You say it isn't guaranteed, please outline any plausible scenario in which they pay off their debts?

pqrdef

Procrastinator333 wrote: »

The only other option to default was the Germans picking up the tab, but that boat has sailed.

The Germans will end up picking up the tab anyway. Fair enough - they drunk the wine.