If it was simple enough to understand, it probably wouldn't be a problem. But with the media all over the place, different figures being splattered about and any number of divergent opinions, you just know that something extremely serious is going down.

I refer, of course, to the looming Portuguese bail-out, which now has Ewald Nowotny, a governing council member of the European Central Bank, pitching in telling Portugal that it should take the money. Jean-Claude Juncker, the chairman of Eurogroup, is also at it, saying he thinks Portugal would need an aid package worth €75 billion, and there are many more besides, all telling this benighted country to take the money.

View full article here

Where's our referendum?

Sod the Referendum - We just ned to get out!
The only way to regain our country is to take back control, not just of the finances but of Everything. We need to take responsibility for ourselves, individually and nationally, do away with the 'dependency culture', pay off our debts and start again.

If the Austrians can say no why do we cave in?

I gather some German state's banks are shouting foul too, in Hesse and Baden Wurttemberg........which has just given Angie baby the thumbs down, banks in these two states are unwilling to send good money after bad.

Who can blame them?

Yet our lot [present children purporting to be a government], claim cos Alistair Darling signed up...blah blah, the Tory boys could claim foul too and say that lot [nu liebour] were no longer in government, ergo, we do not recognize the bail-out commitment [fat chance].

IN fact, because Broon was an unelected PM, why don't we renege on the Lisbon constitreaty? It would be legal in the eyes of the British people.

'cause Commie-ron is heir to Blair.

And Tony Blair is The Sun King??
One doesn't tip a hat to the kermits often, but their approach to dealing with a totally parasitic over-class in 1789 stands as a warning down the ages.

There are two forces at work:

The Colleagues, seeing this as a beneficial crisis to force political union. One answer to the Euro is to have a treasury and central control and diminish the roles of the countries to regions. Part of it is creating a tangled web of debt which can't be undone. There's also a reasonable desire, shortsighted though it may be, not to see the whole thing fall apart with the chaos that would bring.

The opposing force is essentially nationalism. Why are we supposed to pay for this lot when we are not even a part of the Eurozone and the rules have had to be broken to allow bail outs at all? Why should the Germans want to pay out hand over fist to bail out Club Med to the extent of impoverishing themselves?

I 'd say that the inflexible ambition of the EU project will mean that nationalism is likely to win.

I'm not sure I'd go with Nationalism per se. I think it is more the economic units that can't be jammed together and treated as a big Heath-Robinson machine. Obviously National economic regimes reflect the economies, but less industrialized more agricultural Nations will always have economies in different cycles to industrial ones.
What we a really seeing yet again, as with the Soviets, is the failure of Centrism.

Putting it more broadly, it's a question of identity.

Why are WE forking out for THEM?

Well, if WE regard THEM as more of US, it's more or less OK. We have regional aid, redistribution of income etc. This is starting to cause problems as far as the Union goes. The questions of why WE should fork out for THEM and why THEY shouldn't fork out more for US, are always central questions in politics which get dressed up in various ways.

However, if we regard THEM as OTHERS; foreigners in a foreign country having a free ride, then why are WE forking out to subsidise that lot, people who are in the mess they are in because that's the way they've always carried on and there's no reason they'll change any time soon. Now, if THEY want to carry on like that, that's their business, but it's nothing to do with US. I suggest traditional nationalities are much easier to identify with, against Club Med than a bloc of countries with similar economies but with difficult past relationships and different languages and outlooks, e.g.Holland and Germany.

Now the point of the EU is to get us not to regard the Greeks as foreigners in a foreign country, but all citizens of the EU.

It`s funny that the EU projects leaders are treating this problem as sovereign debt , and not try to go direct to their "regions" .

Traders seem to be taking a very relaxed view of the Portuguese question.The Telegraph's poll of market analysers showed.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/mark ... rades.html



So, the markets seem to be betting that a solution will be found to eurozone problems,it is merely taken as granted.Rather like our leaders are with us, the electorate

Richard,

Thank you for the reference re Morton's Fork.Love it,and will use it in future.



On a level with the ducking stool to find out if one was a witch,drown and you were innocent,survive and they burnt you as a witch.

Also reminds me of the joke about the governments new simplified tax return,it only has two lines to follow now.

1)How much did you earn last year?

2)Send it in.

Richard

O/T, but this looks interesting!

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/na ... 6028379093

I think it was Booker who predicted that the killer would be over-rapid expansion. Had by this stage they had accumulated maybe a dozen states, from the original 6, it would all be much more stable. All fulfilling and being held to strict conditions to join and stay. But they just couldn't resist the temptation to grab for more. Having to break your own rules shows that the rules weren't properly thought out in the first place, or there was another agenda in place which you daren't mention. They've been fairly subtle and patient, but not enough. "Dealing with" referendums and bending the rules to suggest the Greek Mess was a natural disaster, calls into question the fundamental validity of what they are trying to construct on such a basis.


There are certainly similarities between the EU and the USSR, but also considerable dissimilarities. A similarity is both ending up as lots of nonentities trying to preserve their jobs, which only make sense in a contrived system. No one would actually pay them to do those things because they fulfil no natural demand, they fulfil an artificial demand which no one really wants but everyone has to pay for.

Wasn't it John Major and Hurd who pushed for expansion of the EU ?