Cyprus-Forum.com

[Robin Hood]

LR:
A reasoned post and fair comment, I think you have summed that up very well. An academic exercise really as within a decade the EU will be history anyway. The Elite are setting up the excuse for this already by blaming Putin’s anticipated election hacking ..... before their elections even. I see upcoming elections in Germany, France and the The Nederlands as following the same/similar route to those seen with Brexit and POTUS.

You missed out the fact that with the Euro the only way countries that are locked into it can control their economies, is lost. They cannot devalue their own sovereign currency .... they don’t have one! All they can do is borrow more from the ECB. They borrow to get out of debt ..... that’s a real cleaver thing to do! The introduction of the Euro basically benefitted mainly the German and French economies.

If you look at the US it has the same problem. They share a common currency but there are the rich States and the poor States, and their States are the smaller equivalent of the States of Europe. It appeared that during the Presidential election former supported Clinton and the latter Trump. I wonder why?

[Tim Drayton]

Ireland hasn't benefitted from EU membership? What can I say? Obviously you see something different from me. I would have thought that the following graph said it all (Ireland acceded to the EU in 1973):



Ireland was a country that used EU funding wisely to invest in long-term development projects that have been to the benefit of its people.

[Tim Drayton]

"However much the little-Englander biggots may hate the wops, froggies, krauts etc."

Frankly that's a pretty disgusting, offensive thing to say. Nothing but pure infantile, spite.

It is satire, and there is a strong tradition of satire in British political discourse. I thought your camp were supposed to be the ones who are standing up for true British values against the foreign onslaught (that's another example, and I make no apology for it, either)!

However, it contains more than a grain of truth. Otherwise, how do you account for the following?

There was a sharp increase in the number of racially or religiously aggravated crimes recorded by police in England and Wales following the EU referendum.

In July 2016, police recorded a 41 per cent increase compared to the same month the year before, according to a Home Office report.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/cr ... 58866.html

[Londonrake]

Cherry picking. Very few at that.

Whilst the Irish GDP graph looks very impressive, wrt the standard of living in the country it's a total fiction. What you're seeing is primarily the result of a relatively small number of quite large US companies moving capital assets there, in order to benefit from the low rate of Corporation tax. Fear not though, Merkel and Hollande are on the case, as can be seen from the recent (wink, wink, nudge nudge) Commission instigated ECJ judgement against Apple. They don't like it and it's going to get stopped, one way or another. They are scared by it, which is why we are hearing all this rubbish from Schauble at Davos today warning the UK not to become a Corporation tax haven post Brexit. That would make the Irish CT problem appear for what it actually is - small fry.

As far as EU grants are concerned (EU grants usually involving the Commission giving you back some of your money as long as you spend it on things which meet with their approval ). Ireland has lost far more from effectively surrendering control of its rich fishing waters than they have ever been given back in "Grants". Being an EU member aside they have suffered just like the rest of the P.I.G.S. from loosing the ability to set their own interest rates and devalue when appropriate. The huge housing bubble (the graph resembles yours - only upside down ) and banking crisis in the country were partially products of a lamentable lack of leadership from the EU.

So - as much as you might wish to present Ireland as still being a "Celtic Tiger" in fact - it ain't.

Cloak it in whatever language you choose, your comment about the character of people who voted to leave was ugly and offensive. But I imagine like most of these things, it made you feel good writing it. Furthermore, it's equally repugnant that you try and tar all of those 17 million plus voters with the brush of instigating hate crimes. Whilst nobody could condone such appalling actions and everything should be done to pursue those responsible, not only are they a relatively small figure but moreover there was a concerted and major effort on the part of all UK regional police forces in 2015 to improve their recording efforts for such crimes. You might also add as a factor the way that Cameron campaigned on the referendum issue. His actions, both before and after the vote, served to amplify the divisiveness. The man was a moron, who showed a lamentable lack of understanding regarding the character of the people that he and his cronies were preaching fear to.

[Robin Hood]

Tim Drayton:

Ireland hasn't benefitted from EU membership?

Correct ...... LR has explained the basics to you.

What can I say?

If you don’t know what you are talking about .... say nothing! You just expose yourself as being what you accuse those that voted for Brexit as .... stupid and ill-informed!

Obviously you see something different from me. I would have thought that the following graph said it all.

Yes I do! The graph shows it all, not that you would notice what it was telling you, a GDP that includes the banking and financial sector. All banks do is create debt ..... yes DEBT, nothing else but debt. If this is productive debt i.e. it is used to create jobs, goods and thus wealth, then it could be seen as ‘good’ debt. If it goes into assets .... it is bad debt, leads to bubbles and bubbles go POP!!!! As happened in Ireland. There are thousands of brand new 3-4 bedroomed houses on vast modern estates .... that stand empty. There are thousands of sq.m. of factory/commercial space anticipating a ‘boom’ that would create thousands of jobs, just laying empty.

This guy ( Prof. Dr. Richard Werner of Southampton University) will explain it to you far more accurately than I can .... he invented the term Quantitative Easing .... in Japan. (it is a long read, very informative and all PROVEN beyond doubt and I expect much of it will pass right over your head, that is if you bother to read it!)

Shifting from Central Planning to a Decentralised Economy: Do We Need Central Banks?

For more than the past four decades, public policy discourse, especially when touching on macroeconomic and monetary policy, has been dominated by the views held and actively sponsored by the central banks, particularly in Europe and North-America, as well as Japan.

Their policy narrative has been consistent over time and virtually identical between central banks, which is why I shall refer to it collectively as the ‘central bank narrative’. It has been mirrored in the type of economics that central bankers have supported and that has indeed subsequently become dominant in academia and among the economists selected as the experts of choice in the major newspapers and television channels: the theoreticians advancing neo-classical economics.

This central bank narrative (and hence also the dominant neo-classical economics, also known as ‘mainstream economics’) has at least five major pillars, which I shall list briefly ………..

http://www.globalresearch.ca/shifting-from-central-planning-to-a-decentralised-economy-do-we-need-central-banks/5568753

[Tim Drayton]

... You might also add as a factor the way that Cameron campaigned on the referendum issue. His actions, both before and after the vote, served to amplify the divisiveness. The man was a moron, who showed a lamentable lack of understanding regarding the character of the people that he and his cronies were preaching fear to.

I am glad to see that we agree wholeheartedly about something.

(Incidentally, the asset bubble that you correctly describe as having taken place in Ireland and whose bursting, as you rightly say, led to that country's current woes was a GLOBAL phenomenon and the bubble first burst in the USA - NOT an EU member country and NOT a country that uses the Euro - with the collapse of the sub-prime mortgage model which then sent shock waves all over the world, including to Europe where the same kind of bubbles had also been growing to monstrous proportions, but not only there. If you move away from the right-wing tabloid inspired view that anything bad that happens in Europe must be the fualt of the EU and look at things a bit more objectively, you will realise that the EU is not greatly responsilbe for this event.)

[Londonrake]

... You might also add as a factor the way that Cameron campaigned on the referendum issue. His actions, both before and after the vote, served to amplify the divisiveness. The man was a moron, who showed a lamentable lack of understanding regarding the character of the people that he and his cronies were preaching fear to.

I am glad to see that we agree wholeheartedly about something.

(Incidentally, the asset bubble that you correctly describe as having taken place in Ireland and whose bursting, as you rightly say, led to that country's current woes was a GLOBAL phenomenon and the bubble first burst in the USA - NOT an EU member country and NOT a country that uses the Euro - with the collapse of the sub-prime mortgage model which then sent shock waves all over the world, including to Europe where the same kind of bubbles had also been growing to monstrous proportions, but not only there. If you move away from the right-wing tabloid inspired view that anything bad that happens in Europe must be the fualt of the EU and look at things a bit more objectively, you will realise that the EU is not greatly responsilbe for this event.)

Ahh - I knew there would be something we could both Ad Hominem without any rancour..

That's a very technical description of Ireland's banking/housing misfortunes. I bet though that if I devoted the entire evening to staring at this screen I could perhaps find a contra view. What I can say is - I have a vague recollection of reading similar words used in defending Gordon Brown.

So, is it Google or.................................. the 3 ice cold Coronas I have in the fridge and catching up with the last episode of Sherlock? Mmmmmmmm, difficult one.

[Robin Hood]

Tim Drayton:

(Incidentally, the asset bubble that you correctly describe as having taken place in Ireland and whose bursting, as you rightly say, led to that country's current woes was a GLOBAL phenomenon and the bubble first burst in the USA - NOT an EU member country and NOT a country that uses the Euro - with the collapse of the sub-prime mortgage model which then sent shock waves all over the world, including to Europe where the same kind of bubbles had also been growing to monstrous proportions, but not only there.

But the Banks in Ireland, UK and in Europe generally had bought these US Securitisation packages and many of them were no more than junk bonds that were absolutely worthless. Once the bubble burst the banks ‘liquidity’ got flushed down the pan. It had nothing to do with the Euro or being in the Eurozone, as you said it went Global literally overnight.

If you move away from the right-wing tabloid inspired view that anything bad that happens in Europe must be the fault of the EUand look at things a bit more objectively, you will realise that the EU is not greatly responsible for this event

.

Those that take on the mantle of the EU Presidencies (all five of them) have to accept responsibility as it was allowed to happen on their watch, they should have been aware of what was coming. There were many that advised them but they didn’t listen because the advisors were singing a tune they did not relate to !

The Euro was not responsible for this event, it was a victim of it. But having the Euro as the Eurozone countries common currency made digging themselves out of any predicament that much more difficult. The US had its own currency from day one, all States used it and it spread across the USA over time. In Europe you had a mix of countries all with their own currencies and with vastly different economies and it all happened very quickly. It is an unworkable system drawn up by those that it would benefit with little attempt to understand the implications ..... and then it rapidly spread to countries, that it was totally unsuited to. It has to eventually collapse.

[GreekIslandGirl]

I think the message coming out of Davos is that the sooner the UK actually Brexits, the sooner they can begin to renegotiate EU re-entry (Brentry?).

[Londonrake]

I think the message coming out of Davos is that the sooner the UK actually Brexits, the sooner they can begin to renegotiate EU re-entry (Brentry?).

You obviously have the inside track.