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Can the Euro survive?

  • #61
  • May 28, 2014 6:14am May 28, 2014 6:14am
Quoting jen101
{quote} Scotland is relying on the rights to North Sea oil which could run out in 3-4 years. The Shetland isles will probably fight them for rights (and win) . The Scottish banks will re-locate to England. Scotland may not qualify to join the Euro. I think the rest of the UK should have a vote too as to whether we want to keep Scotland, lol.


lol, I agree.

Getting the oil is a sticky issue. But my concern is the debt. The debt has built up to trillions for the UK. Scottish people owe that debt just as much as English or Welsh. It can't be right that they suddenly claim independence and have no obligations on that debt.
  • #62
  • Edited 6:57am May 28, 2014 6:41am | Edited 6:57am
Quoting SupraSense
{quote}[/b] lol, I agree. Getting the oil is a sticky issue. But my concern is the debt. The debt has built up to trillions for the UK. Scottish people owe that debt just as much as English or Welsh. It can't be right that they suddenly claim independence and have no obligations on that debt.
Yes, the debt. I haven't read anything about that, what the proposed solution is. Maybe Canary Wharf should claim independence... joke, joke!

You said a couple of times that you are happy with your life here. I assume you don't live in the south east then, or have to sit on the M25 every day like countless millions? Do you have children fighting to get into the local schools? Are you and your family in good health? I grew up in the southern home counties and it was a lovely part of the country. In the last 8 years or so, the south east has changed beyond recognition; it is now totally gridlocked and everywhere you turn there are eastern Europeans. Really, I don't blame them. In their position I'd probably do the same. I totally blame the governments. That's why I voted UKIP. That is why UKIP got the majority vote.
  • #63
  • May 28, 2014 7:06am May 28, 2014 7:06am
Quoting jen101
{quote} Yes, the debt. I haven't read anything about that, what the proposed solution is. Maybe Canary Wharf should claim independence... joke, joke! You said a couple of times that you are happy with your life here. I assume you don't live in the south east then, or have to sit on the M25 every day like countless millions? Do you have children fighting to get into the local schools? Are you and your family in good health? I grew up in the southern home counties and it was a lovely part of the country. In the last 8 years or so, the south east has...
I'm inside the M25, so I don't use it

It has changed here too of course, but in days gone by there was still plenty of immigration. Perhaps it was mainly Irish, Australian, West Indian and Indian then. Plenty of people would moan about some from those nationalities coming over and stealing their jobs, working for cheaper (sound familiar?) and that goes back several decades. But really the root cause of the moaning was just either racism, fear (through lack of education or integration) or bitterness about their own life. Maybe now it is more eastern european, middle eastern or Chinese that migrate to the UK and still we have the same complaints and still the same reasons behind those complaints in my opinion. So the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Some of the main problems in the UK are that we have massive debts, which means a large amount of our taxes just goes to paying off interest, so we get nothing from it. Because of that, the government pays for less and less and takes more and more and that trend will continue while the debt keeps rising. Plus we have a social welfare problem, high inflation and a housing shortage/boom. Things that were free are slowly and surely being taken away from us by the government. University education was free once, now it costs thousands in tuition fees. Transport was cheap, now it is exorbitant (same could be said for utilities). The NHS is heading the same way.

All of those problems are things the governments have caused or could do something about. None of those things is an immigration problem. That's my main point, and that you seem to largely agree with.
  • #64
  • May 28, 2014 7:14am May 28, 2014 7:14am
Quoting SupraSense
{quote} They work for money and a better life for them and their family. Same as most of us. If they want to send money abroad, that's their right. If I go on an expensive holiday, I'm doing exactly the same. What next, stop everyone from taking holidays out of the UK because we need to re-circulate the money? Or what about savers who aren't recirculating the money? Lets ban savings too! Please don't be this silly, I mean think a bit deeper for goodness sake. If you've earned your money, nobody has the right to tell you what you can spend it on...
Extremely well said.

We have the same issue here in Australia at the moment thanks in large to the resource boom. Unions control the masses as hold companies to ransom over wages and when those companies seek more economical measures they are labelled for it. The rhetoric is all to familiar. The problem is that immigrants work for less and they can survive on less because they haven't become accustomed yet to this want for everything, credit, credit, credit.

I know many many people, alot of whom I employee who earn in excess of $150,000 per years for 6 months work (2 weeks on 2 weeks off, 4 weeks on 4 weeks off etc) and so few of them after being employed for years are any further ahead. They have a massive house, 2 nice cars, 4 televisions etc etc etc and their debt is beyond a joke considering the money they earn. Yet it is these same people that when a downturn hits and they have this expectation that they should still get the same money, the same rights that has fueled alot of the immigration taking work because they work for far less and they RESPECT their jobs. They seldom join the unions, and they hate when there are strikes.

I am sure it is the same the world over. As capitalism has grown it has slowly weeped its way into society to the point now where everyone who works wants more to fuel their consumerist nature. When company's look for ways to save and improve their margins and that involves a foreign person they are criticised for not using the local person who wants 50% more and who will complain complain complain.

It is sad how far so many have fallen. The want for crap to fill our lives like it is going to make us happier. We have more today than our parents and their parent had in the past, things are almost instant with technology yet we want things faster and are not happy when things do happen the next second and we complain so much more.

I have travelled to alot of poorer asian countries and have seen the lengths some people will go to for you to do business with them, just to spend time in their shops. The funny thing is they seem so much happier considering the conditions they live in. It shits me to tears when you read about peoples attitudes to immigrants without them taking the time to look under the hood and say to themselves ' Hell if I lived in their conditions how would I cope'.
  • #65
  • May 28, 2014 7:36am May 28, 2014 7:36am
Quoting Razor_trader
{quote} Extremely well said. We have the same issue here in Australia at the moment thanks in large to the resource boom. Unions control the masses as hold companies to ransom over wages and when those companies seek more economical measures they are labelled for it. The rhetoric is all to familiar. The problem is that immigrants work for less and they can survive on less because they haven't become accustomed yet to this want for everything, credit, credit, credit. I know many many people, alot of whom I employee who earn in excess of $150,000...
Yep exactly there's often a sense of entitlement, a misplaced expectation that hasn't been earned by the person.

As for the credit culture, what happened to living within your means and saving for a rainy day?

I do find some off the comments on immigrants a bit strange. I mean after all, no matter where we're a citizen of, at some point in time, at least some of our ancestors came from somewhere else, probably to make a better life. None of us would exist without immigration.

I was fortunate to be born in the UK and I wouldn't begrudge someone else who also wants to come here and is willing to work hard and contribute, and that's the majority of immigrants as I see it.
  • #66
  • May 28, 2014 7:56am May 28, 2014 7:56am
Quoting SupraSense
{quote} Some of the main problems in the UK are that we have massive debts, which means a large amount of our taxes just goes to paying off interest, so we get nothing from it. Because of that, the government pays for less and less and takes more and more and that trend will continue while the debt keeps rising. Plus we have a social welfare problem, high inflation and a housing shortage/boom.
Yes, if we were UK PLC, we'd long be insolvent! We borrow to pay interest on our debt, how crazy is that? We have a quarter of our workforce in the civil service and very few of them on the frontline. Of course if we had plenty of doctors, nurses, teachers, police on the beat, people cleaning the streets etc. we wouldn't feel quite so bad about the amount of tax we pay. But we are largely paying for paper shufflers. There is an exorbitant amount of waste. Thatcherism was about small state and responsibility to the individual. Now we have the opposite - there are so many dependent on the state and I am now not talking about immigrants. I do think immigration is a good thing, so long as we are selective as to who we let in, as I said earlier.

Ultimately I would like to see the Tories get their act together, dump that slug and put Boris in there . Anyway, it seems like curtains for Clegg so Cameron would be losing his "condom" as Boris put it, lol.
  • #67
  • May 28, 2014 8:28am May 28, 2014 8:28am
Quoting SupraSense
{quote} They work for money and a better life for them and their family. Same as most of us. If they want to send money abroad, that's their right. If I go on an expensive holiday, I'm doing exactly the same. What next, stop everyone from taking holidays out of the UK because we need to re-circulate the money? Or what about savers who aren't recirculating the money? Lets ban savings too! Please don't be this silly, I mean think a bit deeper for goodness sake. If you've earned your money, nobody has the right to tell you what you can spend it on...
I am not complaining about it. These are the effects of cross border migration. I don't think it should stop as I think its possibly overstated. But if you really think a higher minimum wage will stop a black market of underpaid migrant employment then you are totally naive. Yes of course taxes are taken by the legals, but I am talking about the migrant underclass here, the same people who will accept more squalid conditions, lining the pockets of illegal landlords, to be more competetive. This sort of puts the 'market rate of pay' out of whack with the rest of the economy.

How damaging is it to the economy? - to my knowledge it has not been investigated but has merely been used as a battle ground between the political groups without the real facts. Pointless political pontification as per usual and I agree with you, immigrants are used as a scapegoat for people's desire for greater financial reward. Isn't this the economic and social result of mass consumerism and the political result of the death of many trade unions which held companies and the government to ransom?. Considering only 30% of the population of the UK voted its a bit of a farce.

Razor, the same companies that look to cut back are the same companies that sell the cosnumerist dream to the masses. It's a system, the people are the sheep. Its all very well looking down upon them at their foolish ways, but unless the system is managed by the government the sheeple's choices will continue to have a huge economic impact.
  • #68
  • May 28, 2014 8:35am May 28, 2014 8:35am
Quoting SupraSense
{quote} I'm inside the M25, so I don't use it It has changed here too of course, but in days gone by there was still plenty of immigration. Perhaps it was mainly Irish, Australian, West Indian and Indian then. Plenty of people would moan about some from those nationalities coming over and stealing their jobs, working for cheaper (sound familiar?) and that goes back several decades. But really the root cause of the moaning was just either racism, fear (through lack of education or integration) or bitterness about their own life. Maybe now it is...
You really are a liberal aren't you. Why should university education be free ffs? And whilst I am at it, why should people who make themselves ill get free health care? It's the liberals that have caused the freebie culture, without it we could have easily cushioned the blow of global financial colapse a lot better.
  • #69
  • May 28, 2014 8:42am May 28, 2014 8:42am
Quoting Porkpie
{quote} I am not complaining about it. These are the effects of cross border migration. I don't think it should stop as I think its possibly overstated. But if you really think a higher minimum wage will stop a black market of underpaid migrant employment then you are totally naive. Yes of course taxes are taken by the legals, but I am talking about the migrant underclass here, the same people who will accept more squalid conditions, lining the pockets of illegal landlords, to be more competetive. This sort of puts the 'market rate of pay' out of...
That's more of a criminal issue. It's pointless having rules and laws if they're not going to be enforced, just as here we have companies dodging taxes by accounting practices. Again it comes down to the politicians who are just not doing a good job. But labour didn't do a better job before, they were terrible. And UKIP will be even worse imo.
  • #70
  • May 28, 2014 8:48am May 28, 2014 8:48am
Quoting Porkpie
{quote} You really are a liberal aren't you. Why should university education be free ffs? And whilst I am at it, why should people who make themselves ill get free health care? It's the liberals that have caused the freebie culture, without it we could have easily cushioned the blow of global financial colapse a lot better.
No, I'm not a liberal. I don't suggest that it must be free, I'm making the point that despite the government providing less (and declining) services for the population, the taxes and inflation are going up and up. It's a trend. If someone provides a service for you and decide to reduce that service and at the same time charge you more, you have to wonder. Imagine if all your life you could go to a restaurant and the salt and pepper were free, then the same restaurant not only increased the menu prices but the food was worse and they also charged you for salt and pepper, service and the chairs to sit on. Wouldn't you question that?

In any case, although university education was once free at the time you studied, university graduates paid significantly more tax on average and so in the end they did pay for it in that way. The higher tax payers pay more, but they don't necessarily get more. One could easily argue that school shouldn't be free, or that healthcare shouldn't be free, I'm not going to argue either way, except to say that it depends on the taxes you pay. If as a country (not individually) you have high taxes, you can expect higher service and more things for free, otherwise why are you paying such high taxes?
  • #71
  • May 28, 2014 9:00am May 28, 2014 9:00am
Quoting SupraSense
{quote} I wonder how the finances will be split if Scotland leaves the UK. Obviously the UK has debts, but some of that is down to Scottish people as well...so will they have to take on some of the debt? If not then I imagine the rest of the UK will keep all the UK's resources, like oil etc. The last article I read suggested that England subsidises Scotland, so althought Scotland might want independence, they may find themselves worse off financially.
Reading today, apparently Scotland's debt would be 74% of its GDP. While it is a high level, its not something that would necessarily mean Independence would be prohibitive. Given their Oil wealth and the growth that would come with the start of a new Scotland, this wouldnt represent a problem to Scotland to pay it off over 10 or so years.

Let us not forget, the UK offered up this referendum on Scottish Independence, so what right have they to deride those who now clamour for it?
  • #72
  • May 28, 2014 9:04am May 28, 2014 9:04am
Quoting JBserious
{quote} Reading today, apparently Scotland's debt would be 74% of its GDP. While it is a high level, its not something that would necessarily mean Independence would be prohibitive. Given their Oil wealth and the growth that would come with the start of a new Scotland, this wouldnt represent a problem to Scotland to pay it off over 10 or so years. Let us not forget, the UK offered up this referendum on Scottish Independence, so what right have they to deride those who now clamour for it?
Thanks for the figures, I wasn't aware of them. Maybe reasonable with oil reserves, but how much of the oil will they get? It currently belongs to the UK rather than Scotland and they have no valid claim. I guess a deal will have to be struck, but I don't think the UK should give it all.
  • #73
  • May 28, 2014 9:11am May 28, 2014 9:11am
Going by the noises being made by Alec Salmond, they would have the rights to all claims within their national boundaries ie North Sea. The UK wouldnt really have a valid claim given that they are separated from these resources by 500+ miles of another sovereign country. This hasn't been argued against by Pro-UK campaigners. But a likely scenario is that Scotlands repayment of debt to the UK will end up in a sharing of these claims to the Oil
  • #74
  • May 28, 2014 9:22am May 28, 2014 9:22am
Quoting JBserious
Going by the noises being made by Alec Salmond, they would have the rights to all claims within their national boundaries ie North Sea. The UK wouldnt really have a valid claim given that they are separated from these resources by 500+ miles of another sovereign country. This hasn't been argued against by Pro-UK campaigners. But a likely scenario is that Scotlands repayment of debt to the UK will end up in a sharing of these claims to the Oil
I think the oil is up for negotiation. It depends what is enforceable. Similarly, those pushing for independence for Scotland have recently claimed that they would be able to still use the pound, but this too has been refused by the UK. Would be interesting to see. I imagine Scotland getting most, but not all of the oil, but that's just a guess. Your suggestion also sounds reasonable. Time will tell.
  • #75
  • May 28, 2014 9:43am May 28, 2014 9:43am
Unfortunately i dont have a crystal ball to see how this will all play out. Scottish Independence is a far from straight forward situation. I cant see them being able to keep using the pound. It would be more of a temporary solution for 1-2 years, until they have their own institutions in place and can then phase it out and replace it with their own currency or the Euro (maybe?). But sharing the same currency between two separate economies has its own inherent risks so long term scotland keeping the pound wouldn't work
  • #76
  • May 28, 2014 10:49am May 28, 2014 10:49am
I am hearing that the Golden Dawn party in Greece and the UKIP party in the UK are similar. Is this true?

I am not trying to judge anyone or anything in the EU. I understand that here in the USA we do not get the whole picture. This thread has been great, btw.
If you are good at something, never do it for free--Joker
  • #77
  • May 28, 2014 10:55am May 28, 2014 10:55am
Quoting SupraSense
{quote} I think the oil is up for negotiation. It depends what is enforceable. Similarly, those pushing for independence for Scotland have recently claimed that they would be able to still use the pound, but this too has been refused by the UK. Would be interesting to see. I imagine Scotland getting most, but not all of the oil, but that's just a guess. Your suggestion also sounds reasonable. Time will tell.
That is critical.

Scotland leaves, then they are going to have to join the EU. That could spiral out of control fast.
If you are good at something, never do it for free--Joker
  • #78
  • May 28, 2014 11:05am May 28, 2014 11:05am
Quoting SupraSense
Back to topic. Has there ever been a time when people didn't say the EURO would fail? I remember before it was introduced it was suggested it would fail, when it was introduced it was slammed by the media as not working, during the credit crunch the media said it would fail, when Spain, italy, ireland, portugal all had problems I read the Euro would fail. Yet it's still here! Earlier this month it hit its highest value against the dollar in 2 years or more. Why is everyone so quick to write it off when it's proved the doubters wrong multiple times....
Yeah, I still have some deutschmark and pfennig here, maybe I will need them, seriously:
New things tend to have problems, new and big things tend to have a few more problems. The EURO had its problems due to german-money-protective thinking in the german national bank which stopped the ECB from taking effective measures earlier in the financial meltdown. In the end though, they're working on these, so called, construction problems. Looking back now, the EURO did quiet well and I do not even want to imagine how a german currency would be skyrocketing and killing all exports when the neighbour countries go tits up.

To the texas man starting that thread here: germany is not what it was before and I think you should not forget that also the world was a rather different place especially in the first world war. Germany may have a big voice in all the EU and EURO things but its not the only voice, so no: they are not controlling europe.

To the UK debate going on: I believe they should stay, but well, I wouldn't be the first one making a fortune speculating against the british pound.
  • #79
  • May 28, 2014 12:04pm May 28, 2014 12:04pm
This was Calais today. French police broke up an illegal immigrant camp. Nearly every day we hear of so-called asylum seekers risking their lives trying to get into the UK, hanging onto the underside of Eurostar trains, the chassis of lorries and buses, setting fire to the tracks so they can stop the trains and jump on. Why? International law states that they have to seek asylum at the first safe country they arrive in, so what's wrong with France? What's wrong with the countries they pass through to get to France? Because they know that as soon as they get here, they will get free handouts, housing, healthcare, schools for all their kids and a nice wad of cash to blow. Don't tell me these people are here to work.

10 years ago, it was the same picture. Remember Sangatte? Only they were Europeans. Where are they all now? Well, we opened our doors, didn't we and welcomed them all in. I was amongst a convoy of 5-6 cars on the M20 who collectively forced a lorry off the road because there were asylum seekers hanging off the roof. When the lorry stopped, the asylum seekers ran off into a field and some of the drivers ran off after them, caught and held them until police arrived. Now we are told that unless we welcome these people with open arms we are racist. Of course, it is the system's fault. Our welfare system is already being abused by our own; we can't afford for the rest of the world to abuse it too.

Like I said, I have no problem with people who are here genuinely to work, but as we are such a small island and already at bursting point, we need to be more selective in who we let in. For goodness sake, Canada says they are full!
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  • #80
  • May 28, 2014 12:48pm May 28, 2014 12:48pm
jen101: I wonder whats the connection between free movement within the EU and illegal immigration? I don't see any.

Benefits: I don't know how thats in the UK but there was a EU court ruling a week ago that germany don't have to pay that so called hartz IV, to EU immigrants. Hartz IV is basically a big part of the german benefits system. In theory that should be valid for the UK as well.

In the end its the decision of the british people and I do not care very much about it, but I think one has to differentiate here and maybe there is a better solution to manually cherry picking just by giving immigrants who haven't worked yet no benefits at all. If they work and have a better life there, they will stay, otherwise they leave and make room for better ones. Practically: lets the market decide if they can use these workers or not and it might have a chance to be compatible with the EU free movement regulatory.
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