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Robots for Robots → Random media → Do EUropeans care?
Shouldn't this topic be in the section "the daily ufo" (instead of "random media") or maybe "the daily imf"? 
european federalism all the way. The current problems in greece might not have been so great, had unity been more far reaching in the 1st place (ie legal and institutenal)
european federalism all the way. The current problems in greece might not have been so great, had unity been more far reaching in the 1st place (ie legal and institutenal)
Easier said than done, isn't it?
absolutely, but i think it is premature to write-off the EU as a failed experiment, when it hasn't been implemented completely and thoroughly yet, and it is this incompleteness which causes some of the EUs ongoing problems.
Then there are the daily advantages of living in the EU (one currency, no customs at borders, etc) which I think people don't realise how inconvinient life was before the EU (or are too young to remember)
I'm with you teknob
I like the "solidarity" within the EU, but it's clear that eu's more about saving the eu's ass than the one of greece. In the case of greece the punishment for the goverment could be harder, I mean they showed faked statistics to the european union for feckin years, and this is just a total a-social behaviour of "we're just in for the money and to let someone else clean up our shit".
Sad only that it's mostly the people of the country who have nothing to do with it that get the biggest part of the probem, not the dumb officials who caused it. 
The idea is that mutual dependence ensures peace - you can't bite the hand that feeds you. It worked too: We haven't had a war in Europe since. Go EU!
::thumbs up
next stop: Portugaul, Spain, Italy.
Technicolor wrote:The idea is that mutual dependence ensures peace - you can't bite the hand that feeds you. It worked too: We haven't had a war in Europe since. Go EU!
::thumbs up
Well if southern europe keeps on making debts while thinking to get away with it we'll have enough to make a next war about don't you think?
absolutely, but i think it is premature to write-off the EU as a failed experiment, when it hasn't been implemented completely and thoroughly yet, and it is this incompleteness which causes some of the EUs ongoing problems.
Then there are the daily advantages of living in the EU (one currency, no customs at borders, etc) which I think people don't realise how inconvinient life was before the EU (or are too young to remember)
There were measures taken against exactly what has happened. So the currency system has now failed to provide what it was designed for.
Technicolor wrote:The idea is that mutual dependence ensures peace - you can't bite the hand that feeds you. It worked too: We haven't had a war in Europe since. Go EU!
::thumbs up
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslav_Wars
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot. … -vows.html
There were measures taken against exactly what has happened. So the currency system has now failed to provide what it was designed for.
That's true, in a way. But had Greece had its own currency, it would be just as fucked now. Printing more money would send their inflation sky high, and people would be burning cars just the same. And eventually the neighbours would have to chip-in and bail-out.
asteroid wrote:Technicolor wrote:The idea is that mutual dependence ensures peace - you can't bite the hand that feeds you. It worked too: We haven't had a war in Europe since. Go EU!
::thumbs up
It's a bit disingenuous to mention the Yugoslav wars - none of the Yugoslav nations were part of the European Union were they?
The point is: there has been no war between its members. It was intended to create stability in Europe, specifically between its biggest powers, which had been fighting with one another (in occasionally different configurations - but the common factor was France/Germany hostility in the face of Prussian expansionalism and French imperialism with both sides covertly helping out against one another in other wars) with very little interval for the preceding 200 years. In that sense, it has been a success. So far.
What the world really needs is a similar arrangement in East Asia - though the complexities of diplomacy and economics in that area make it massively unlikely in our lifetimes.
biotek wrote:asteroid wrote:::thumbs up
It's a bit disingenuous to mention the Yugoslav wars - none of the Yugoslav nations were part of the European Union were they?
The point is: there has been no war between its members. It was intended to create stability in Europe, specifically between its biggest powers, which had been fighting with one another (in occasionally different configurations - but the common factor was France/Germany hostility in the face of Prussian expansionalism and French imperialism with both sides covertly helping out against one another in other wars) with very little interval for the preceding 200 years. In that sense, it has been a success. So far.
What the world really needs is a similar arrangement in East Asia - though the complexities of diplomacy and economics in that area make it massively unlikely in our lifetimes.
They were part of Europe though, during the existence of the European Union. So to say EU has created stability in Europe is not just a bit disingenuous.
@ytz: Couldn't have put it better myself 
@biotek: Still, that was a civil war, and outside of the EU.
edit: also, compared to the History of Europe, I'd say hell yes it's created stability.
Yeah sure created stability inside the EU. There are lot of other factors at play aswell, like NATO connections. But to claim that EU has stabilized Europe when Yugoslav happened is just a logical fallacy.
Another recent example of EU and stability would be Georgia.
Again, the idea is that mutually dependent countries cannot fight each other. Countries outside of EU do not share this trait, and so, they fight.
ytz wrote:biotek wrote:It's a bit disingenuous to mention the Yugoslav wars - none of the Yugoslav nations were part of the European Union were they?
The point is: there has been no war between its members. It was intended to create stability in Europe, specifically between its biggest powers, which had been fighting with one another (in occasionally different configurations - but the common factor was France/Germany hostility in the face of Prussian expansionalism and French imperialism with both sides covertly helping out against one another in other wars) with very little interval for the preceding 200 years. In that sense, it has been a success. So far.
What the world really needs is a similar arrangement in East Asia - though the complexities of diplomacy and economics in that area make it massively unlikely in our lifetimes.
They were part of Europe though, during the existence of the European Union. So to say EU has created stability in Europe is not just a bit disingenuous.
Well, I'll agree that a Union of European states within Europe, that witholds the right to exclude other European states, is paradoxical. However, in the past, a situation like the Yugoslav wars would have kicked off a massive shitstorm between the biggest states in Europe - and I'll grant that the EU seems to favour them more than the smaller ones (maybe because they have more going for them?). Taking a global perspective, the Yugoslav war was containable (cruel as that sounds). Whose to say that would have been the case if France, Germany, the UK, Italy, etc. didn't have a common interest in maintaining close diplomatic ties with one another? In the specific case of the Yugoslav wars, Russian interference was modified by having to contend with the EU as one body, rather than casting around for degrees of support from its members.
As a concept, the EU would be far more consistent if it included every European state - but there's a host of problems there alone (identity politics as much as economics).
I should add that while I'm not anti-Euro, I'm not too optimistic about its chances in the case of either global conflict or global depression. It's pretty frail, more's the pity...
I don't know about frailty. EU is the biggest economic force on the planet, and NATO has lots of "geopolitical assets" all over Europe.
http://www.ecb.int/stats/exchange/eurof … sd.en.html
@ funkbox what about California, isnt that going to be just as fucked soon too?
No, California is fucked NOW! Our own federal GOVMT. is bailing them out with money borrowed from good ole Communist China.
Last time I checked Greeces debt to GDP ratio was 113%
USA debt to GDP ratio is 94%
(but what the fuck does that mean?)
Well, for every $100 you make ya gotta pay back $94
@least thats how I understand it.
USA debt deeply concerns me.
I think we are close to that tipping point.
next stop: Portugaul, Spain, Italy.
maybe, still the situation with the public debt in spain for example is not as bad as in some other countries (not saying this is the only parameter to take into consideration, however it is an important one)
"Other selected Levels of Public Debt as a % of GDP from 2009
Italy 115.20
Greece 108.10
Iceland 100.60
Belgium 99.00
France 79.70
Germany 77.20
Portugal 75.20
Hungary 72.40
United Kingdom 68.50
Austria 68.20
Ireland 63.70
Netherlands 62.30
Norway 60.20
Spain 59.50
Albania 54.90
Croatia 47.70
Poland 47.50
Switzerland 43.50
etc"
Hmm Yas, I think it's way too simple to look at it that way. First of all, don't forget, Greece got into trouble because they faked their numbers in the first place. And dept alone is not the real worry, it's the likeliness of a countries economy to stay healthy enough in order to one day repay those debts. That likeliness depends on your financial health and the nature of those depts in terms of interest rate, length of the loan and the principal payments. Same like me getting a mortgage: being self employed I'm much more of a risk, so the terms and conditions will be accordingly, and depending on those terms I could be much worse off even tho I have a smaller loan than my neighbor who has a steady job. And I'd be even more worse off if I, unlike my neighbor, didn't get my loan from a bank but from a loan shark... So even tho Spain has a lower public dept percentage, other countries like Germany and the Netherlands can be considered to be much less of a risk.
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