The European Union

[Yeekim]

Can't we just be friends?

Me disagreeing with some of your more biased ideas won't make us enemies (I hope ).

 

[Agent327]

Actually that diversity of opinion reflects the reality that the European Union is globalist on some things
(e.g. intellectual property rights) and protectionist on other things (e.g. agricultural products).

As is your custom you have no clue about what the EU actually does - nor, apparently, what 'globalist' means.* I'm afraid that's typical of quite a lot of comments on here...

*Hint: 'globalist' isn't a word. Globalization (not 'globalism') describes an economic process that's been going on for quite some time.

 

[EnglishEdward]

As is your custom you have no clue about what the EU actually does - nor, apparently, what 'globalist' means.* I'm afraid that's typical of quite a lot of comments on here...

*Hint: 'globalist' isn't a word. Globalization (not 'globalism') describes an economic process that's been going on for quite some time.

It is you who do not know what are you talking about.

A globalist is a person who advocates globalism.

And globalism is described in wikipedia.

And you have no manners.

 

[Agent327]

That's a rather irrelevant innuendo.

'A globalist is a person who advocates globalism'. Seriously? Can one join this globalist movement'? Do they throw parties?

I note your comment has zero relation to the EU and globalization - which is what I was criticizing.

 

[CavLancer]

What happens if the French right is elected? Tempted to ask if they can take and hold hold Moscow this time but I'm seriously curious. End of the EU?

 

[AdrienIer]

You mean our own neofacsists ? Referendum for France leaving the EU, then if we do it's the end of the EU as we know it.

 

[CavLancer]

No, I think there may be a few of those, sure. However it takes a crap load of folks to elect someone, majority last I heard. Is a majority of France fascist? I kinda doubt it. However if enough people are irked by the policies of the left, they will vote for the other guy. When the EU opened its doors to millions of Arabs, that may have been the inevitable end of the left for a bit, and I'm wondering if the end of the left means the end of the EU? Is the EU a one party, or viewpoint, organization?

 

[innonimatu]

2) The good thing about the EU is that you actually can fight free trade deal from a centralized point, with quite a bit more pressure and exposition. In fact, it's actually the European Parliament which slowed down ratification from such trade deals, up to the point the TTIP has been more or less abandoned - if it had been up to local government, it would have been signed, and much sooner.

The EP rubber-stamped CETA and the TTIP had been just postponed because of public discontentment. Now it seems dead, but it took the election of a "populist" in the US to do it.

The one obstacle, temporary, that I saw so far to CETA was a regional parliament. The remaining obstacles are the ratifications by the national parliaments because the EC got scared of public backlash and quit its claims that those were unnecessary. If they had the federal EU they wanted it'd be a done deal by now.

3) Let me remind you again : everything that happens in the EU, happens because elected official are doing it. Now imagine these officials inside a structure having much LESS power to resist external pressure, and try to claim they would magically be able to fight globalization more. Yay, I can see that from here.

You think bigger = more power to resist. That is absolutely wrong when it comes to political deals. Bigger means "too big to fail". Or "too big to be abandoned". Smaller assemblies, where the elected representatives are closer to the people, feel the pressure of the voters far more that those ensconced in a remote capital. Case in point: the big nations bailed out their banks, and had the state carry their private debts. The one nation where the government fell over it, the bankers got jailed and the banks went bankrupt, because the people rebelled successfully, was Iceland, the 400.000 people nation. The rest of the world put pressure on them... they just answered screw it, we don't bail out the banks. and didn't.

Bigger polities are bad for democracy.

That's a completely stupid statement. Like, absolutely, completely, utterly stupid. Like if companies would suddendly stop looking for better deal (i.e. : more exploitable people) just because, somehow, the EU didn't exist and said companies had much less regulations (or much less enforceable ones). That's just nonsensical.

They'd cease looking for a better deal because they couldn't be able to find one. Slap customs duties back on cross-border transactions and those good deals of using cheap labor abroad and selling expensive stuff at home are gone.

And don't tell me that such a regulation is impossible, because until the 1990s it was not only possible but common across the world. The capacity to regulate constitutes to exist. And both the US and the EU demonstrate that right now with agricultural products and pharmaceuticals (just to give you two examples).

 

[Akka]

The EP rubber-stamped CETA and the TTIP had been just postponed because of public discontentment. Now it seems dead, but it took the election of a "populist" in the US to do it.

The one obstacle, temporary, that I saw so far to CETA was a regional parliament. The remaining obstacles are the ratifications by the national parliaments because the EC got scared of public backlash and quit its claims that those were unnecessary. If they had the federal EU they wanted it'd be a done deal by now.

They were postponed because there was opposition in the EU framework, actually, from European Deputies. That's how popular discontent could actually block the progression of the treaty, not people rumbling in their home.Without the EU, such treaty would simply have been signed one country at a time, with increased pressure on the resisting ones to not be left alone and outcompeted by their neighbours.

You think bigger = more power to resist. That is absolutely wrong when it comes to political deals. Bigger means "too big to fail". Or "too big to be abandoned". Smaller assemblies, where the elected representatives are closer to the people, feel the pressure of the voters far more that those ensconced in a remote capital. Case in point: the big nations bailed out their banks, and had the state carry their private debts. The one nation where the government fell over it, the bankers got jailed and the banks went bankrupt, because the people rebelled successfully, was Iceland, the 400.000 people nation. The rest of the world put pressure on them... they just answered screw it, we don't bail out the banks. and didn't.

This has absolutely nothing to do with the EU. Nations bailed out their banks because they were afraid (rightly or wrongly) from the consequences of not doing it. They already did it well before the EU - the existence of the EU is completely irrelevant here.

It seems you're just creating links between bad things and the EU when it fits your narrative, and you ignore existing ones between good things and the EU to not burst your hate-bubble.

They'd cease looking for a better deal because they couldn't be able to find one. Slap customs duties back on cross-border transactions and those good deals of using cheap labor abroad and selling expensive stuff at home are gone.

And don't tell me that such a regulation is impossible, because until the 1990s it was not only possible but common across the world. The capacity to regulate constitutes to exist. And both the US and the EU demonstrate that right now with agricultural products and pharmaceuticals (just to give you two examples).

Except if you're a country of 30 millions people and you put regulations, the market is simply going to shrug, ignore your country, write off 30 millions customers and sell elsewhere. Hence you're going to get huge economical pressure to "compete". Companies would simply cross the border and sell to other countries.
If you're the biggest economic block on the planet, the market simply can't ignore you, and so has to conform. Companies can't relocate out of the richest continent just like they can relocate out of one of its countries. You also can seriously fight for worldwide standards to be applied, unlike the little irrelevant 30 millions people country.

You blissfully ignore this just to imagine that somehow, breaking the EU apart in countless small and weak nations, they would magically be able to compete or be heard on the worldwide economy against the like of China or the USA.

 

[Verbose]

One can always compete with China, if working Chinese hours for Chinese wages. Which is why finding other ways to stay competitive tends to be sought.

Robotics and computerization however will make also the Chinese too expensive.

 

[CavLancer]

No trade with nations without free elections.

 

[Kyriakos]

They were postponed because there was opposition in the EU framework, actually, from European Deputies. That's how popular discontent could actually block the progression of the treaty, not people rumbling in their home.Without the EU, such treaty would simply have been signed one country at a time, with increased pressure on the resisting ones to not be left alone and outcompeted by their neighbours.

This has absolutely nothing to do with the EU. Nations bailed out their banks because they were afraid (rightly or wrongly) from the consequences of not doing it. They already did it well before the EU - the existence of the EU is completely irrelevant here.

It seems you're just creating links between bad things and the EU when it fits your narrative, and you ignore existing ones between good things and the EU to not burst your hate-bubble.

Except if you're a country of 30 millions people and you put regulations, the market is simply going to shrug, ignore your country, write off 30 millions customers and sell elsewhere. Hence you're going to get huge economical pressure to "compete". Companies would simply cross the border and sell to other countries.
If you're the biggest economic block on the planet, the market simply can't ignore you, and so has to conform. Companies can't relocate out of the richest continent just like they can relocate out of one of its countries. You also can seriously fight for worldwide standards to be applied, unlike the little irrelevant 30 millions people country.

You blissfully ignore this just to imagine that somehow, breaking the EU apart in countless small and weak nations, they would magically be able to compete or be heard on the worldwide economy against the like of China or the USA.

That would matter IF there were EU regulations mandating spread of factories evenly across the EU, or similar safeguard for economy of each member state.
What we instead have is some countries ordering the EUROPEAN central bank to stop supporting a member state so as to blackmail.
I am sure you note how distant the first is from the second.

Wages aren't the same across Eu states either. And those states with smaller wages don't get more factories either. So it actually is stifling instead of promoting any EU that would be livable for EU citizens.

 

[innonimatu]

They were postponed because there was opposition in the EU framework, actually, from European Deputies.

Were not the European Deputies the ones overwhelmingly voting to fast track the traty and to reject having it undergo judicial review? Yes, they just did that:

Parliament rejected a request by 89 MEPs to refer the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for an opinion on Wednesday.

Eighty-nine MEPs had questioned whether the free trade deal’s investor protection provisions are in line with the right of governments to regulate in order to achieve legitimate public policy aims, such as protecting health, safety or the environment.
The referral request was rejected by 419 votes to 258, with 22 abstentions, paving the way for a vote on the CETA agreement itself.

This has absolutely nothing to do with the EU. Nations bailed out their banks because they were afraid (rightly or wrongly) from the consequences of not doing it. They already did it well before the EU - the existence of the EU is completely irrelevant here.

Oh, really? When were such "bailouts" on that kind of scale ever done before the EU? I posted a link to the EU parliament's decision above, to back my claim. It would be nice if you had any fact with which to back your claims, for a change.

Except if you're a country of 30 millions people and you put regulations, the market is simply going to shrug, ignore your country, write off 30 millions customers and sell elsewhere. Hence you're going to get huge economical pressure to "compete". Companies would simply cross the border and sell to other countries.
If you're the biggest economic block on the planet, the market simply can't ignore you, and so has to conform. Companies can't relocate out of the richest continent just like they can relocate out of one of its countries. You also can seriously fight for worldwide standards to be applied, unlike the little irrelevant 30 millions people country.

"The market" does not exist. It is but an excuse too often thrown about, as if those two words were magical and could excuse anything decided by some technocrat. What does exist are many markets, for many commodities, with many players, sellers and buyers. And in the midst of that diversity there are plenty of policy options. The technocrats you love would have us believe that their prefered options are inevitable. Indeed in that case we could throw away democracy already, and appoint an oligarchy served by a handful of excuse-producing technocrats as out eternal rulers. Cannot you see just how wrong your worldview is?

You blissfully ignore this just to imagine that somehow, breaking the EU apart in countless small and weak nations, they would magically be able to compete or be heard on the worldwide economy against the like of China or the USA.

I do not blissfully ignore anything. I am fully aware that "small" nations are not doomed to be "weak", as history has proven over and over again. Need I remind you that the largest nation on earth disintegrated just 25 years ago? That the most powerful economy on earth during the 20th century "lost ground" compared to the rest of the world during the decades after WW2, when nations were "small"? Need I point out to you the pathetic economic performance of the "eurozone" compared to many "small" nation in the world, both wealthier and poorer?

It is you who and obstinately ignorant. You convinced yourself of the fundamental lie being the EU, its sole remaining excuse to exist: "we must be big otherwise we'll be crushed by xyz foreign bogeyman". Never mind that historic evidence, right up until now, disproves that. Beyond the size necessary to fully staff the workings or a modern state (a population above few hundred thousand people, I guess) there is no relation between "size" and "strength". Strength is an accident of geography (location, recourses) and history (society, built-up capital goods). The EU's strategy (if it has one!) has proven totally incapable of developing those, it has instead produced a decade-long crisis in Europe.

 

[AppleDumplingHead]

I think Italy's referendum is going to have explosive negative impact on the world economy next week. I think, once again, Germany is going to feel obligated to bail out its southern neighbors. I think the only possible positive change will be immediate currency reform in the EU, with a new central fiscal authority, and no one's going to agree how that should be overseen and by whom. I think people need to act quickly to avert a real disaster. In any event, it's likely to stagnate the current growth in the US stock market, as investors shore up in safer investments, especially given the lower-than-expected revenues from black friday sales.

 

[Agent327]

What happens if the French right is elected? Tempted to ask if they can take and hold hold Moscow this time but I'm seriously curious. End of the EU?

Why?

You mean our own neofacsists ? Referendum for France leaving the EU, then if we do it's the end of the EU as we know it.

What? The French extreme right are all about immigration, not about leaving the EU. Seriously. The normal French right are far too smart to even want to consider leaving the EU.

That would matter IF there were EU regulations mandating spread of factories evenly across the EU, or similar safeguard for economy of each member state.
What we instead have is some countries ordering the EUROPEAN central bank to stop supporting a member state so as to blackmail.
I am sure you note how distant the first is from the second.

Wages aren't the same across Eu states either. And those states with smaller wages don't get more factories either. So it actually is stifling instead of promoting any EU that would be livable for EU citizens.

Very nice. Actually EU countries can't 'order' the ECB to do anything. Sort of like with any central bank. Secondly, the ECB doesn't support member states. Lastly, the EU can't and doesn't 'move factories'; it has no authority or power to. (And why wages across different EU countries should be 'the same' isn't quite clear either. Is there some economic law that says they have to be?)

Were not the European Deputies the ones overwhelmingly voting to fast track the traty and to reject having it undergo judicial review? Yes, they just did that:

Not according to your quote. FWIW, the EU parliament has no means to 'rush' any treaties, and subjecting a proposed (not an actual) treaty to 'revision' by the ICJ is highly unusual, to say the least.

Oh, really? When were such "bailouts" on that kind of scale ever done before the EU? I posted a link to the EU parliament's decision above, to back my claim. It would be nice if you had any fact with which to back your claims, for a change.

Yes, really. No banks were bailed out by the EU. The EU parliament can 'decide' all it wants, it won't have any effect of individual governments deciding to yay or nay bail out a bank.

I do not blissfully ignore anything. I am fully aware that "small" nations are not doomed to be "weak", as history has proven over and over again. Need I remind you that the largest nation on earth disintegrated just 25 years ago?

China or India disintegrated 25 years ago? Oh, us blissfully ignorant who didn't notice...

It is you who and obstinately ignorant. You convinced yourself of the fundamental lie being the EU, its sole remaining excuse to exist: "we must be big otherwise we'll be crushed by xyz foreign bogeyman". Never mind that historic evidence, right up until now, disproves that. Beyond the size necessary to fully staff the workings or a modern state (a population above few hundred thousand people, I guess) there is no relation between "size" and "strength". Strength is an accident of geography (location, recourses) and history (society, built-up capital goods). The EU's strategy (if it has one!) has proven totally incapable of developing those, it has instead produced a decade-long crisis in Europe.

None of what you just said has anything to do with creating the EU. In other words: it's blissfully void of historical facts. (But then, rants often are, aren't they?)

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

Food for thought(quite old but never the less):

Democracy in Europe is the rule of the Cabinet minister, the corrupt deputy or the self-seeking capitalist masqued by the occasional sovereignty of a wavering populace; Socialism in Europe is likely to be the rule of the official and policeman masqued by the theoretic sovereignty of an abstract State. It is chimerical to enquire which is the better system; it would be difficult to decide which is the worse.

The gain of democracy is the security of the individual’s life, liberty and goods from the caprices of the tyrant one or the selfish few; its evil is the decline of greatness in humanity.

Democracy was the protest of the human soul against the allied despotisms of autocrat, priest and noble; Socialism is the protest of the human soul against the despotism of a plutocratic democracy; Anarchism is likely to be the protest of the human soul against the tyranny of a bureaucratic Socialism. A turbulent and eager march from illusion to illusion and from failure to failure is the image of European progress.

 

[AdrienIer]

What? The French extreme right are all about immigration, not about leaving the EU.

No, Le Pen wants a referendum on leaving the EU where she would lead the leave side

 

[Gigaz]

Given the sorry state of Brexit, she would loose such a Referendum. So she would likely not initate it until she feels she can win it. Doesn't matter, as Le Pen is never going to be the French President.

 

[Akka]

Given the sorry state of Brexit, she would loose such a Referendum. So she would likely not initate it until she feels she can win it. Doesn't matter, as Le Pen is never going to be the French President.

In all logic, she SHOULD lose the referendum.
Now, we have people fed up with "the system" and the 1% exploiting them, who voted for Trump, we have people (in this very thread) considering that a bunch of scattered smaller countries would be better able to defend worker's rights than by working together, and we have one of the most social-minded country in the world having a Thatcherist as the most probable future president.
So from here we can draw that :
- People are idiots.
- Logic has little room in politics.

 

[EnglishEdward]

One can always compete with China, if working Chinese hours for Chinese wages. Which is why finding other ways to stay competitive tends to be sought.

Robotics and computerization however will make also the Chinese too expensive.

I beg to differ.

Robotics and computerisation will certainly reduce the impact of lower wage rates,
however the Chinese have all the money they need to invest in robotics and
computerisation, so that will not necessarily make their goods too expensive.

New technologies such as three D printing will be significant, but that is
most likely to be beneficial in terms of small orders and for bespoke parts.