Stay or go? EU poll - Oh the irony.

mayonnaise

antrobus wrote: »

My dentist is Swedish. At least that's where she got her dental qualifications. She doesn't look Swedish either. My best guess would be that she (or at least her parents) were originally Iranian.

Ms. Rezakhani?

antrobus

Bantex wrote: »

I never said responsible, I said he appeared to accept the situation whilst accusing others of being racist.

Then you'd be wrong.

Returning to post #226 he merely stated that "Australia is making genuine steps towards a settlement with the First Australians, migration policy has moved on hugely from the White Australia policy which was effectively alive and well in my lifetime."

As far as I'm aware, that is a reasonably accurate statement of where Australia is these days, and I'm not sure how, by making such as statement, he is excluded from having an opinion about racism elsewhere in the world.

Im sure that there a lot of people who live here in the UK, like for example you, who similarly 'accept' the situation in the UK, and I don't believe that it would be logical, to exclude them from having an opinion on racism somewhere else in the world. Such as Australia for example.

antrobus

mayonnaise wrote: »

Ms. Rezakhani?

No, that is not her name. But it is something similar.:)

Linton

CLAPTON wrote: »

how many trans European software products are there?

Of major significance, the only one that comes to mind is SAP. The problem with the recent software products (facebook, twitter, ebay, baduk, alibaba) is that the first ones to establish a major presence take the whole market. In the latter two examples each of which are significant in two language separated markets which may unite to form one. Products with only a small local market soon get squeezed out eg Friends Reunited. I am not aware of any recent business or technical software packages. In the past the UK was a world leader in technical packages but these tended to be unprofitable and found it difficult to establish any market presence in the US which has won out in the end.

do your economies of scale require Eu parliament and further integration e.g. legal systems etc?

The main requirements I believe are free movement of people, goods and services and commonality of standards. Economics will drive the rest.

The more integration the better for efficiency. Some is better than none. Lets look at the US - a top level Parliament: yes. An overall legal framework: yes . That does not preclude lower level "state" parliaments with limited but significant jurisdiction, including some tax raising powers.

Again Economics will be the main driver of what happens

should English become the mandatory language within the EU

Mandatory can only come after de facto. Will it happen - not in the near future as all multinationals need to support a global multilingual market at the moment. Perhaps the EU breadth of language skills could be a global competitive advantage. Presumably at some stage we will be left with a very small number of languages. The future of English remains to be seen - the US could become Spanish speaking eventually. But we are surely talking centuries for this to be resolved.

In the meantime standards like multilingual labelling works well enough.

antrobus

CLAPTON wrote: »

very useful and comprehensive response.

It's about as useful and comprehensive as the question "how many trans European software products are there?".

The market for many software products is pretty much global these days. Once you get beyond the small business sector, it would be pretty difficult to buy any accounting package that wasn't at least "trans European". No one would buy unless it was multicurrency and capable of supporting more than one language.

Bantex_2

Linton wrote: »

The main requirements I believe are free movement of people, goods and services and commonality of standards. Economics will drive the rest.

.

I believe free movement of goods and services are economic matters, whilst free movement of people is a politcal stance.

There again the EU was always a political project disguised and an economic one.

CLAPTON

antrobus wrote: »

It's about as useful and comprehensive as the question "how many trans European software products are there?".

The market for many software products is pretty much global these days. Once you get beyond the small business sector, it would be pretty difficult to buy any accounting package that wasn't at least "trans European". No one would buy unless it was multicurrency and capable of supporting more than one language.

context is everything: the context was in a short dialogue with Linton

antrobus

Linton wrote: »

Of major significance, the only one that comes to mind is SAP. ...

SAP yes. Agresso (Unit 4) is another one. Other alternatives are available from Oracle and Microsoft, and lots of other people as well.

These days, if you come up with some software package that works in one country, you go global asap, so such products tend to be trans-global never mind trans-flippin-European.:)

antrobus

CLAPTON wrote: »

context is everything: the context was in a short dialogue with Linton

That's right "context is everything". So contextually '"err lots" is a perfectly valid response to a darned fool question such as 'how many trans European software products are there?' Having you been living in a box for the last twenty years? How do you think Google.de works?

(Shakes head in bafflement.):)

danothy

Bantex wrote: »

I believe free movement of goods and services are economic matters, whilst free movement of people is a politcal stance.

You're belief is wrong on that latter count. The free movement of people is economic as it equates to the free movement of labour. The morality associated with not denying the agency and autonomy of people is a pleasant side affect.

Bantex wrote: »

There again the EU was always a political project disguised and an economic one.

As if allowing people to be free is something that is naturally open to criticism.