Any way you slice it Germany wins.

pqrdef

k12479 wrote: »

Europe can't work either by the prolifigate expecting their undeserved living standards to be maintained by the frugal.

Ah yes, those Swabian housewives scratching a living in abject poverty while the Greeks live in luxury. That's not right.

k12479

cisamcgu wrote: »

SAAB - car divison gone bust
Volvo - car division owned by China
ABB - headquartered in Zürich, Switzerland
AstraZeneca - half British owned
IKEA - Dutch owned

I'm aware of all that, mere details:

SAAB Aero - Still going
Volvo Group - Aero, Penta, Trucks, Construction equipment, etc
ABB - The 'A' bit is from Sweden
AstraZeneca - The Astra bit is from Sweden
IKEA - Technicality. Owned by a foundation set up there for tax

SKF, Scania...:)

pqrdef wrote: »

Ah yes, those Swabian housewives scratching a living in abject poverty while the Greeks live in luxury.

Ah yes, it's always easy to say someone else should pay.

Milarky

lvader wrote: »

London has been a global trading centre going back 100's of years, it's the one thing we have left that is truely world class. It doesn't stop or discourage other economic activities. Unfortunately most of the growth in the UK has been artificially created by the previous government by encouraging a consumer boom through borrowing and increasing government spending.

Feeding the very Leviathan which claims to our only form of successful activity. Yes, Standard Life can take your £50 monthly endowment premium and find the most productive parts of the world economy to stick it in, and that managment ability is worth something to UK plc, but it's not a substitute for having a balanced economy (jobs in the north, affordable, available housing everywhere)

Whilst the UK may yet escape a truly major fallout from the global crisis, that will be despite the way our economy operates, not because of it.

Milarky

pqrdef wrote: »

Which is why she has to be cut out of the loop. Europe can't work as 27 countries all vetoing anything they don't like.


As opposed to Moody's telling us?

But Brussels would do a lot of the spending directly. For instance, we could have EU-wide social security, education and healthcare schemes paid for by Brussels.

Otherwise, you only end up with a bigger version of "postcode lottery". "We have to pay to subsidise their onion-growers and their tuition fees are lower than ours" blah blah for ever.

The trick is to leave the national boundaries out of it and drop the Us and Them.

That's reminiscent of the difference in the debate between atheists and believers - when the argument is so clearly in favour of surmounting historic ideas (like: 'nation states- aren't they the greatest contribution to world civilization') and creating something newer it's not so much a discussion as a flight to the barricades. People don't behave rationally - and market rationality, which ignores it's actually people causing all this turmoil, resembles blind faith at this stage

pqrdef

k12479 wrote: »

Ah yes, it's always easy to say someone else should pay.

Once upon a time, my brother wanted a motor bike, but he was young and the finance company wasn't too keen. I guaranteed the HP, he got the bike, he paid for it, didn't cost me a penny. Simples.

The PIIGS were fine when they could roll over their debts at 3-4%. The whole eurozone debt crisis was manufactured by the withdrawal of the implicit guarantee, which until then even the ECB had believed in.

k12479

pqrdef wrote: »

I guaranteed the HP...didn't cost me a penny

Reading posts over on the Loans board suggests you may be one of the luckier ones.

Besides, it's not quite the same is it? A more accurate analogy might be: you expecting me (or the Germans) to guarantee his HP. And him wanting a Ducati rather than the scooter that more befits his means. And him promising to stop gambling until the loan is repaid but then pottering off to the Epsom Derby, wadge of notes in hand, after we've completed the paperwork.

pqrdef wrote: »

The PIIGS were fine when they could roll over their debts at 3-4%.

Getting the biggest mortgage you could was fine...until interest rates started rising. Having a maxxed out credit card was fine...until interest rates went up. Having a big 4x4 for the school run was fine...until fuel prices went up.

Just because you could doesn't mean you should and Spain and Greece clearly should not have.