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YF-23 posted:I am vaguely aware that left-brexit arguments are being made and that Labour has its own small share of pro-Brexit folk, but I'm getting not getting the impression these are represented in any true fashion in the Leave campaign's rhetoric. Feel free to post about it though, it is something I'd like to read. The major issue to contest is whether or not workers' rights are actually protected by the free movement of people - the theory is that the 'free market' should determine the best conditions for the freely moving people, but the reality is that few move into countries where they experience worker benefits, but merely the country that will take their cheaper labour. This both has the negative effect of undercutting local labour (which could be fine) and providing only the expendable income derived from that to their home country (if at all). It becomes a race to the bottom about how lovely treatment a European worker will accept, which ties into the fact that some of the poorer countries basically allow their working conditions to be forcing them to eat poo poo. This would easily be solved by an EU-wide welfare provision or even national-based mincomes, but those are loony leftist ideas and so aren't considered even in passing.
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Jun 22, 2016 00:26
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Tesseraction posted:This whole thing is a shitshow, really. Donald Tusk is right to say the EU needs to take a long, hard look at why it's so unpopular. The only people who actually support it wholeheartedly tend to be rich assholes who happen to also be politicians. Well, its actually only unpopular in Britain, most of the continent is pretty OK with it. And it does a lot of "PR" stuff like Schengen, Erasmus, EU wide health insurance coverage, etc. to keep it that way. I think the fact that it's neo-liberal in ideology is due to its member states being neo-liberal. You need to have change on a state level before you can start reforming the EU.
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Jun 22, 2016 00:28
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waitwhatno posted:I think the fact that it's neo-liberal in ideology is due to its member states being neo-liberal. You need to have change on a state level before you can start reforming the EU. That's actually the Ye Olde Socialiste argument for leaving - it's hard enough to push for a egalitarian state in one country, let alone asking a whole continent, some of which have a knee-jerk hatred for anything vaguely left-wing-sounding.
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Jun 22, 2016 00:32
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More to the point, some research (but not all) suggests France dislikes the EU more than Britain does, and Greece and Spain don't feel much happier about it. I mean, pinch of salt, Germany is also unhappy in that, but that's probably due to the refugee crisis and Christian Democrat voters living up to the teachings of Jesus. Specifically they felt like living up to the part of the Levite in the tale of the Good Samaritan. (Spoiler: the Levite ignored the injured man)
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Jun 22, 2016 00:37
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Rookoo posted:I'm a Cock, Vote Leave. I think I want to just vote for Britain to be nuked.
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Jun 22, 2016 00:42
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Ligur posted:
You are aware that your business class is the class that wants to remain in the EU right? Service, Finance, and banking will be the first to jump ship should Leave win and these three sectors are essentially the UK's economy. And the state of the political class matters most, probably matters the most, one should look to Brazil to see the after effects of dumb and shameless political moves.
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Jun 22, 2016 00:59
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Electronico6 posted:Service, Finance, and banking will be the first to jump ship should Leave win and these three sectors are essentially the UK's economy. Your point about the three sectors is true, but the idea that the service sector will jump ship is ridiculous. Are you claiming that the supermarkets, hotels, cleaners, restaurants, etc. are going to somehow transplant themselves from their current physical locations? Yeah the financial sector argument is valid but lol like the average Briton sees a penny of that.
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Jun 22, 2016 01:04
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Tesseraction posted:Your point about the three sectors is true, but the idea that the service sector will jump ship is ridiculous. Are you claiming that the supermarkets, hotels, cleaners, restaurants, etc. are going to somehow transplant themselves from their current physical locations? I was mostly thinking in terms of tech, from everything involving dumb unicorn start-ups, but also in energy, health, e-commerce/finance/banking, but also for example distribution and shipping, a lot of Non-European countries(China), utilize the UK has an entry point to avoid customs in certain EU countries, but also for being cheap and having lax tax laws. Not to mention of course, London's most profitable enterprise, empty apartments for Russian money laundering. But also has poo poo gets rough you would definitely see a lot of those restaurants, retail, and so on closing down.
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Jun 22, 2016 01:14
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I'm interested in the institutional decision making at the center, if German banks really run EU policy. Who are the unelected technocrats, and what are examples of instances when they've pushed through policies against elected governments opposition? Or are elected governments complicit in these policies. If so, what instances? I'm just v ignorant about European politics but I was surprised to learn that for example Britain and some other European countries have posted worse economic records than the 1930s for the post 2008 period.
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Jun 22, 2016 01:34
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The EU basically threatened two democratically elected governments into resigning to be replaced with unelected technocrats, is probably the most obvious example. Mario Monti in Italy and Lukas Papademos in Greece were the unelecteds put in charge after the Markets decided their governments weren't good enough.
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Jun 22, 2016 03:30
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So who are the guys in the room who get to say, "Mr. Prime Minister we find you are not sufficiently committed to fiscal etcetera resign by Tuesday or the bonds end"?
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Jun 22, 2016 05:41
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Arglebargle III posted:So who are the guys in the room who get to say, "Mr. Prime Minister we find you are not sufficiently committed to fiscal etcetera resign by Tuesday or the bonds end"? The European Central Bank, the European Commission, or more accurately their respective bureaucratic representatives. Or maybe Schauble. It's not exactly very opaque, as you might expect when it comes to responsibility for toppling democratically elected governments. All we ordinary people ultimately get are joint statements and maybe the occasional leak to figure the decision making process out on our own. So don't worry, us Europeans are exactly as ignorant as you are as to who exactly is making these decisions and who is responsible. It's intentionally obtuse methinks.
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Jun 22, 2016 07:41
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The letter that told the Spanish PM "Yo, take up the banks' debt. PS. Lower salaries and make it easier to fire plebes." was signed by Jean Claude Trichet, head of the ECB. Fwiw.
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Jun 22, 2016 08:14
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cool and good posted:I'm an ignorant American. Can you tell me what the non-immigration/foreigners arguments are? The only report I can remember saying leave could be good for Britain economically is this one from OpenEurope, but then the conditions for Brexit to be beneficial require that it pursues 'ambitious deregulation' and 'liberal immigration policies'. But then, OpenEurope's supporters list appears to be a Who's Who of British business. Pluskut Tukker fucked around with this message at 08:35 on Jun 22, 2016 |
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Jun 22, 2016 08:33
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Dawncloack posted:The letter that told the Spanish PM "Yo, take up the banks' debt. PS. Lower salaries and make it easier to fire plebes." was signed by Jean Claude Trichet, head of the ECB. Fwiw. Yeah but I don't for moment believe she's the one who made the decision. Maybe we could still hang her anyway? When the revolution comes I mean.
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Jun 22, 2016 08:46
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She? Trichet's a dude.
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Jun 22, 2016 08:56
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gently caress your pronouns
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Jun 22, 2016 08:58
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Arglebargle III posted:I'm interested in the institutional decision making at the center, if German banks really run EU policy. Who are the unelected technocrats, and what are examples of instances when they've pushed through policies against elected governments opposition? Or are elected governments complicit in these policies. If so, what instances? One thing to note though is the fact that the German members of the ECB govrrning council are all opposed to the in their eyes too generous rescue policy that the ECB engaged in to save the Euro and prevent Greece and co. from going bunkrupt.
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Jun 22, 2016 09:05
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Though it has to be said that they were far more lenient than the general European public at the time. It's still disgusting and reprehensible and a stain that's going to have far reaching implications as a precedent, but I have to admit that if the negotiations had been public and democratically legitimated in national parliaments, the results would likely have been far worse for Greece.
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Jun 22, 2016 09:10
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I have to admit my disdain for the EU's lack of democracy in the upper echelons is balanced out somewhat by my disdain for the average
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Jun 22, 2016 09:51
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Pluskut Tukker posted:The only report I can remember saying leave could be good for Britain economically is this one from OpenEurope, but then the conditions for Brexit to be beneficial require that it pursues 'ambitious deregulation' and 'liberal immigration policies'. But then, OpenEurope's supporters list appears to be a Who's Who of British business. Ha, good old "abrogate all laws and import slaves". Who could have predicted that the most influential anarchist movement would be the one started by capitalists?
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Jun 22, 2016 09:56
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Tesseraction posted:I have to admit my disdain for the EU's lack of democracy in the upper echelons is balanced out somewhat by my disdain for the average The problem is that the bureaucrats are also morons and don't even face the prospect of being called out by the rest of us morons to stop them from loving up.
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Jun 22, 2016 10:00
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Kassad posted:The problem is that the bureaucrats are also morons and don't even face the prospect of being called out by the rest of us morons to stop them from loving up. Oh I agree, but then the average voter is also unaccountable for being a massive dipshit who would serve their own personal interest better by making GBS threads into a pancake then eating it.
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Jun 22, 2016 10:18
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Friendly Humour posted:Though it has to be said that they were far more lenient than the general European public at the time. It's still disgusting and reprehensible and a stain that's going to have far reaching implications as a precedent, but I have to admit that if the negotiations had been public and democratically legitimated in national parliaments, the results would likely have been far worse for Greece. Well, they were legitimised by Parliament. Remember that from 09-12 the Greek parliament was majority PASOK with New Democracy the second largest party. Arglebargle III posted:So who are the guys in the room who get to say, "Mr. Prime Minister we find you are not sufficiently committed to fiscal etcetera resign by Tuesday or the bonds end"? In Greece's case, it was the other European leaders. They had figured out a plan, and they thought it was a good plan, which would punish the lazy Greeks that they were gonna bail out and teach them true free market principles and a work ethic. And the Greek prime minister, Papandreou, had agreed to it, but then decided to hold a referendum on it. The other European leaders, primarioy Sarkozy and Merkel, didn't like that, and on the economic forum on Davos in 2011 strongarmed him and schemed for other members of his party (Venizelos at least, who was as high profile as you got within PASOK) to break from him and force him to resign. Thus leading to the Papademos technocratic government. Now if you're asking what the parliament did, the Papademos government received the support of PASOK, New Democracy, and the far right LAOS, together accounting for something like 90% of parliament. But that was a parliament formed in 2009, and poo poo only hit the fan for real in 2010/2011. In the 2012 election PASOK and New Democracy lost more than half their support and LAOS failed to enter parliament. So yeah, technically the elected representatives of the country had to approve all that, but it was more of a rubber stamp than looking to represent the will of their constituents.
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Jun 22, 2016 10:42
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I like how Papademos was brought in as an economist who'd worked at the European Central Bank to solve the debt crisis but all he managed to do was sweet gently caress-all over 5 years. Shows something about the competency of Europe's elites.
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Jun 22, 2016 10:50
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Tesseraction posted:I like how Papademos was brought in as an economist who'd worked at the European Central Bank to solve the debt crisis but all he managed to do was sweet gently caress-all over 5 years. Shows something about the competency of Europe's elites. Yep it's all the fault of Europe and the fact that Greece has shown again and again that they are unwilling or unable to reform without a gun pointed at their head has nothing to do with it. Nothing at all. YF-23 posted:Now if you're asking what the parliament did, the Papademos government received the support of PASOK, New Democracy, and the far right LAOS, together accounting for something like 90% of parliament. But that was a parliament formed in 2009, and poo poo only hit the fan for real in 2010/2011. In the 2012 election PASOK and New Democracy lost more than half their support and LAOS failed to enter parliament. So yeah, technically the elected representatives of the country had to approve all that, but it was more of a rubber stamp than looking to represent the will of their constituents. "The will of their constituents" is to legislate water into wine, which is simply not possible. Unless your plan is to have Greek tanks roll through Berlin, Frankfurt and Brussels there is no way Greece can force the rest of Europe to continue to finance their higher than economically feasible standard of living.
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Jun 22, 2016 10:57
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GaussianCopula posted:Yep it's all the fault of Europe and the fact that Greece has shown again and again that they are unwilling or unable to reform without a gun pointed at their head has nothing to do with it. Nothing at all. So for five years your precious blowjob-recipients had a hand-picked dude from their own ECB in charge of the government and five years later had nothing to show for it, and this somehow proves that Greece is poo poo at managing the economy? Seems like the Troika is poo poo at managing economies.
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Jun 22, 2016 11:05
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GaussianCopula posted:Yep it's all the fault of Europe and the fact that Greece has shown again and again that they are unwilling or unable to reform without a gun pointed at their head has nothing to do with it. Nothing at all. For anyone else out there who might be confused by this statement, it's bullshit. "Reform" is the nice sounding euphemisms that EU elites use for "gently caress the poor". The economy of France, with its generous welfare, is holding up much better than the economy of any country who tried the EC reccomended "reforms". So yeah, the Greece haven't "reformed" in that they don't particularly like economic suicide. Sure, Greece is hosed... after adopting a currency that does not serve the interests of its economy and that makes exports impossible, and after having it's banks closed for no good economic reason. Spain, because we have dipshit conservatives in power, has taken the EC's reccomendations and, well, 
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Jun 22, 2016 11:10
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I think you'll find that scavenging food from bins is exactly the economic reform Guassian Copula considers sensible economic policy. Because he's an idiot who would run Germany's economy into the ground if he were allowed to touch the levers.
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Jun 22, 2016 11:22
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Tesseraction posted:So for five years your precious blowjob-recipients had a hand-picked dude from their own ECB in charge of the government and five years later had nothing to show for it, and this somehow proves that Greece is poo poo at managing the economy? Seems like the Troika is poo poo at managing economies. If the Troika would actually have full control of the Greek government and administration you might have a point, but they don't. Sure, you could argue that it's their fault that they were not more strict with Greece, but I don't think that's an argument you want to make.
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Jun 22, 2016 11:27
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GaussianCopula posted:but they don't. Hahahahahaha!!! Good one bro. Do you have your own stand up ?
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Jun 22, 2016 11:31
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GaussianCopula posted:If the Troika would actually have full control of the Greek government and administration you might have a point, but they don't. Sure, you could argue that it's their fault that they were not more strict with Greece, but I don't think that's an argument you want to make. Man from the Troika becomes prime minister of Greece with unity government, Guassian Copula somehow claims this doesn't count because...
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Jun 22, 2016 11:36
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Tesseraction posted:I like how Papademos was brought in as an economist who'd worked at the European Central Bank to solve the debt crisis but all he managed to do was sweet gently caress-all over 5 years. Shows something about the competency of Europe's elites. Papademos wasn't prime minister for 5 years, he was from November 2011 to May 2012. New Democracy wanted elections because, well they wanted to have the government themselves (and also it was pretty clear that the parliament of '09 wasn't really cutting it as being anywhere near representative enough). Then they couldn't form a government because they got like 18% of the vote lmao and we had the snap election of June 2012 which brought us the Samaras government via a ND/PASOK(/Democratic Left) coalition. GaussianCopula has like, a third of a point in that there was, certainly, friction between the Troika's demands and the government. The other two thirds of the point are that jesus christ if your puppet government won't accept your demands they must be loving poo poo and that the troika was, ultimately, fine with some of its demands getting ignored so long as their puppet government paid them a pound of flesh, so they're complicit in that.
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Jun 22, 2016 11:51
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Tesseraction posted:I like how Papademos was brought in as an economist who'd worked at the European Central Bank to solve the debt crisis but all he managed to do was sweet gently caress-all over 5 years. Shows something about the competency of Europe's elites. Papademos was Greek PM from November 2011 to May 2012, and his government concluded the second bailout. He has not been 'in charge of the government' for 4 years now. GC is completely correct to say that the Troika never had full control of the Greek government and administration (or anywhere else really), otherwise the last few years would have been much less entertaining for lovers of political drama.
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Jun 22, 2016 11:52
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YF-23 posted:Papademos wasn't prime minister for 5 years, he was from November 2011 to May 2012. New Democracy wanted elections because, well they wanted to have the government themselves (and also it was pretty clear that the parliament of '09 wasn't really cutting it as being anywhere near representative enough). Then they couldn't form a government because they got like 18% of the vote lmao and we had the snap election of June 2012 which brought us the Samaras government via a ND/PASOK(/Democratic Left) coalition. Pluskut Tukker posted:Papademos was Greek PM from November 2011 to May 2012, and his government concluded the second bailout. He has not been 'in charge of the government' for 4 years now. GC is completely correct to say that the Troika never had full control of the Greek government and administration (or anywhere else really), otherwise the last few years would have been much less entertaining for lovers of political drama. I suppose this is part of the problem - if the plans were rejected by a puppet government that then dissolved, how lovely were the suggestions? Were any of them actually any good? And if they were, why are they still failing to show results even with what GC describes as a 'gun' to their head?
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Jun 22, 2016 11:55
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If the policy fails that just means you didn't policy hard enough. Lazy greeks ruined the ECBs beautiful economic models which were totally workable and not at all a thinly veiled liquidation campaign to get the Greeks pay for the European banks' bailout. The Troika only had the Greeks best interests in mind, promise!
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Jun 22, 2016 12:05
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Just gotta Greece the wheels of this machine before it goes to Hellene in a handbasket.
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Jun 22, 2016 12:07
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YF-23 posted:troika was, ultimately, fine with some of its demands getting ignored so long as their puppet government paid them a pound of flesh, so they're complicit in that. Oh for sure political Europe has to take their share of the blame at this point. They should have forced Tsipras to implement the will of the people, who said no to another bailout and kicked him out of the Euro.
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Jun 22, 2016 12:13
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Tesseraction posted:I suppose this is part of the problem - if the plans were rejected by a puppet government that then dissolved, how lovely were the suggestions? Were any of them actually any good? And if they were, why are they still failing to show results even with what GC describes as a 'gun' to their head? The plans were never 'rejected', they were either implemented or ended up stalled or delayed in implementation (you can find the documents stating what Greece signed up to here, for instance). The Troika mostly prioritized pushing for those reforms which cut government spending and raised taxes, and those which suppressed wages and cut pensions. The MoUs also involved product market reforms aimed at making Greece a productive economy again (since at the moment it doesn't export anything really other than some refined oil), and privatization of state-owned companies; neither of these got very far. Reform is really hard, particularly if there is resistance on part of domestic interest groups and oligarchs and a thoroughly rotten political system, and reform in Greece was always going to take ages. But the way in which the Troika acted implies that they were more interested in getting paid back ASAP than in getting Greece back on its feet. You could say that the Troika should have pushed the fight against corruption and clientelism more, but that could not have been done without taking over the government themselves. Corruption is endemic to the Greek political system and has been so since at least the 1980s (or at least it got markedly worse then). You could also say that the Troika should have let Greece slow down the pace of austerity, but since it's the Troika actually funding the Greek deficit that would have meant the other EU member states putting up even more money. So maybe the Troika was always doomed to fail. In any case, it did serve as an excellent scapegoat for the failings of member state governments. Pluskut Tukker fucked around with this message at 12:23 on Jun 22, 2016 |
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Jun 22, 2016 12:19
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GaussianCopula posted:Oh for sure political Europe has to take their share of the blame at this point. They should have forced Tsipras to implement the will of the people, who said no to another bailout and kicked him out of the Euro. So now that he has this gun to his head, why isn't this miraculous recovery occurring? Why isn't it occurring anywhere in Europe that's accepted the Troika's 'recommendations'?
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Jun 22, 2016 12:20
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