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pigdog posted:There is no injustice in a country not allowing in immigrants whom they don't like. That is each country's sovereign right. There is no injustice there. Again, this doesn't change the fact that it's xenophobia. When the criteria for "don't like" is "is foreign" then there's an obvious problem. And the country would probably be a lot more welcoming to immigrants if it wasn't for nationalist assholes fear mongering and misinforming their way across the land whenever it looks like filthy foreigners might be polluting their mighty sovereign gene pool. EDIT: pigdog posted:Actually it's more like having living in a place for the last 5000 years kind of notion. Sorry if that's too hard to wrap your head around. You are utterly loving naive if you don't think nations and their borders don't matter, after what, a couple of decades of relative peace in the region. This is the exact attitude that needs to stop. The baseless feeling of superiority to the unwashed masses. People don't look with awe and wonderment at your incredibly storied history, they call you an rear end in a top hat because you use it to prop yourself up above everyone else in your own head. Yinlock fucked around with this message at 00:22 on Jun 23, 2016 |
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Jun 23, 2016 00:15
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pigdog posted:Actually it's more like having living in a place for the last 5000 years kind of notion. Sorry if that's too hard to wrap your head around. You are utterly loving naive if you don't think nations and their borders don't matter, after what, a couple of decades of relative peace in the region. Living in a place for the last 5000 years you say? 
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Jun 23, 2016 00:45
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Extermely infuriating sarcasm is truly what makes a european
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Jun 23, 2016 01:10
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half the posters in the thread are finnish. Which says something although im not exactly sure what.
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Jun 23, 2016 01:11
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Ligur posted:I agree with pigdog... to some extent, but why are these guys going "DAAHHHRGGG I LOVE TRUMP" without giving anyone reasonable excuse to doing so? ReagaNOMNOMicks, fishmech, Brainiac Five and so on. "I love Trump!" I'm sorry, is Donald Trump running for prime minister of Canada now? Friendly Humour posted:half the posters in the thread are finnish. Which says something although im not exactly sure what. Did someone accidentally install a sauna?
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Jun 23, 2016 02:17
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YF-23 posted:Living in a place for the last 5000 years you say? Ignorance is a proud value of ardent nationalists, don't mock their culture!
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Jun 23, 2016 03:21
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fishmech posted:I'm sorry, is Donald Trump running for prime minister of Canada now? Give it up, you're being too subtle; they will never figure out that America comprises more than just the United States of America.
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Jun 23, 2016 03:23
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So anyway who is actually running the troika institutions and why? Is it really the IMF and ECB and EC, therefore two unelected bankers one of which has strong neo liberal leanings institutionally and one that happened to be headed by a neo liberal when the "sovereign debt crisis" paradigm took hold in 2009? (Draghi?) Because lol. How did that happen Europe?
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Jun 23, 2016 05:58
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It's kinda funny seeing people react so negatively to the idea that the welfare state and the nation state are closely related, when you think of how vehemently some people opposed Sanders because "only white people will benefit from a welfare state in the US, as the historical record shows." Ligur and them must have been reading the same racist websites.
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Jun 23, 2016 06:33
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I found this entertaining.
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Jun 23, 2016 07:08
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ReagaNOMNOMicks posted:Nation-state never meant "functioning state" or "modern state" or "the ideas that come to my head haphazardly about what a ntion-sate is". Yes indeed. So, let's refine some notions a bit. There are three different elements:
All three elements cover a different dimension:
What is a nation? It's a bunch of people who, in their majority, believe they belong together. It's not necessarily defined by language or by culture, a nation can be multilingual and multicultural, or it may be monolingual and monocultural, doesn't matter. What matters is the feeling that the people have that they belong together. This is called a national identity. What is a state? It's an organization that administers both people (its citizens, or subjects, depending on the kind of state) and territory. What is a country? It's territory controlled by a state. There's a cultural element here in that the boundaries for a country are largely caused by historical circumstances, especially when there are no "natural borders" such as a mountain range or a shoreline. What is a nation-state then? It's when you have a state, and the inhabitants of this state form a nation, and the territory of this state form a country. National identity is not an exclusive thing. It's perfectly possible for someone to feel that they are Scottish and British and European. This person has three national identities, and will vote YES on keeping Scotland in the United Kingdom and YES on keeping the United Kingdom in the European Union. On the other hand, it's possible to feel Scottish but not British. Then this person voted NO on keeping Scotland in the UK. When a state does not have a nation, it tends to be dysfunctional. People will not feel that the state represents them, because they don't feel that they belong with the other citizens or subjects of the state. This leads to a whole bunch of problems and the solutions are either to build a national identity in which they will recognize themselves, or partitioning the country into different states. The state needs legitimacy, and in a nation-state, legitimacy is the consent of the governed. You may, if you prefer, have an autocratic state where legitimacy is through strength, the ability of the government to crush any form of dissidence; it's probably preferable since nation-states are so awful. Now what is a FYGM? It's when people don't feel that they have any reason to show solidarity to their brethren, because they don't even see them as their brethren. And a shared national identity is something that helps mitigate (even if not, unfortunately, abrogate) FYGM. Example: West German people accepted to spend untold gazillions of Deutschemark into bringing East Germany out of Soviet-induced poverty, because they felt the Ossies belonged with the Wessies. But then German people wanted the Greek to starve more because FYGM, they really don't think the Greeks belong with them. That's why you're not going to be able to build a nation-state of United Germany and Greece. FYGM is the biggest obstacle to welfare. Nation-states are necessary for building a welfare state because if you don't have a shared national identity, you're never going to be able to overcome mankind's deep entranched FYGM instincts.
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Jun 23, 2016 07:23
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Cat Mattress posted:National identity is not an exclusive thing. It's perfectly possible for someone to feel that they are Scottish and British and European. This person has three national identities, and will vote YES on keeping Scotland in the United Kingdom and YES on keeping the United Kingdom in the European Union. On the other hand, it's possible to feel Scottish but not British. Then this person voted NO on keeping Scotland in the UK. Your post is interesting but I do feel the need to point out that some people won't vote based entirely on national identity, or at least every person's notion of national identity differs. Putting too much stock in one's national identity tends to bring it's own problems(i.e isolationism) since most national identities focus on the fact that "my country/nation/state is the greatest".
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Jun 23, 2016 08:00
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Friendly Humour posted:half the posters in the thread are finnish. Which says something although im not exactly sure what. Ligur is your fault, Finns. Did you chase him out of the Finland thread again that he has to poo poo up this thread instead?
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Jun 23, 2016 08:12
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No, it's not the Finns fault. This thread is just being managed with the same governance style they have in Brussels. Hence the haywire.
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Jun 23, 2016 08:17
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Cat Mattress posted:Now what is a FYGM? It's when people don't feel that they have any reason to show solidarity to their brethren, because they don't even see them as their brethren. And a shared national identity is something that helps mitigate (even if not, unfortunately, abrogate) FYGM. Example: West German people accepted to spend untold gazillions of Deutschemark into bringing East Germany out of Soviet-induced poverty, because they felt the Ossies belonged with the Wessies. But then German people wanted the Greek to starve more because FYGM, they really don't think the Greeks belong with them. That's why you're not going to be able to build a nation-state of United Germany and Greece. FYGM is the biggest obstacle to welfare. Nation-states are necessary for building a welfare state because if you don't have a shared national identity, you're never going to be able to overcome mankind's deep entranched FYGM instincts. That's an interesting diagnosis, except the EU does of course in effect redistribute money from richer member states to poorer member states (Greece for instance has received on net more than a hundred billion euro from the EU since joining it). So it turns out that there is solidarity, even if not quite to the degree necessary to create a supranational welfare state.
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Jun 23, 2016 09:17
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Torrannor posted:Ligur is your fault, Finns. Did you chase him out of the Finland thread again that he has to poo poo up this thread instead? blame our collective cognitive dissonance wrt Nazi alliance for Ligurs of this world
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Jun 23, 2016 09:20
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Swedish footballer deported from pitch due to 'Braksit' A sign of things to come? 
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Jun 23, 2016 09:32
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A Buttery Pastry posted:It's kinda funny seeing people react so negatively to the idea that the welfare state and the nation state are closely related, when you think of how vehemently some people opposed Sanders because "only white people will benefit from a welfare state in the US, as the historical record shows." Ligur and them must have been reading the same racist websites. Or was this just a troll? e: yeah it was lol Ligur fucked around with this message at 10:47 on Jun 23, 2016 |
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Jun 23, 2016 10:27
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Pound and FTSE storming it too. If Leave *does* win at this point it is going to be absolute and total carnage.
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Jun 23, 2016 10:32
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So why are they not doing exit polls? That's kind of bizarre.
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Jun 23, 2016 10:58
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Demiurge4 posted:So why are they not doing exit polls? That's kind of bizarre. I asked this myself and I think somebody ITT provided a link to explain why not which I now can't remember. But the gist of the reason is that exit polls aren't just a case of asking lots of people as they leave polling stations, instead they target key seats and measure the difference in voting from election to election and use that to project nationally. With this being a 'one off' question, a similar method can't be used.
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Jun 23, 2016 11:03
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Demiurge4 posted:So why are they not doing exit polls? That's kind of bizarre. There's no previous exit poll to use as a baseline to determine accuracy, so it would be expensive to commission and unlikely to be accurate. Basically it's cheaper and more accurate to rely on the opinion polls, in this instance. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-referendum-exit-poll-who-has-won-remain-leave-brexit-live-updates-a7094886.html Although this suggests some private exit polling may occur, so you might be in luck.
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Jun 23, 2016 11:05
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I don't know how Britain works in regard to exit polls but in Greece releasing them prior to voting booths closing is illegal as it could affect the vote.
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Jun 23, 2016 11:06
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Tesseraction posted:There's no previous exit poll to use as a baseline to determine accuracy, so it would be expensive to commission and unlikely to be accurate. Basically it's cheaper and more accurate to rely on the opinion polls, in this instance. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-referendum-exit-poll-who-has-won-remain-leave-brexit-live-updates-a7094886.html Yeah that's what I just said.
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Jun 23, 2016 11:07
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A thing which amazes me are posters who on the first post declare the hitlersatan that is the Troika is responsible for making Greece miserable and basically a destitute third world country (and Spain and Portugal poor etc) but in the next post are equally sure EU is supargut end taking a hike would be an economic disaster and threaten world peace. And, eyes eagerly gleaming, they will often add anyone who thinks otherwise is a xenophobe, a hitler and a ligur. How do they rationalize that?
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Jun 23, 2016 11:20
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Ligur posted:A thing which amazes me are posters who on the first post declare the hitlersatan that is the Troika is responsible for making Greece miserable and basically a destitute third world country (and Spain and Portugal poor etc) but in the next post are equally sure EU is supargut end taking a hike would be an economic disaster and threaten world peace. And, eyes eagerly gleaming, they will often add anyone who thinks otherwise is a xenophobe, a hitler and a ligur. Basically through having a knowledge of the EU and how it works that goes a bit beyond that of a 12-year old.
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Jun 23, 2016 11:40
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I think the EU is terribly flawed even if there's the kernel of a good idea buried under tons of crap, and that the UK should get out.
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Jun 23, 2016 11:42
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Ligur posted:A thing which amazes me are posters who on the first post declare the hitlersatan that is the Troika is responsible for making Greece miserable and basically a destitute third world country (and Spain and Portugal poor etc) but in the next post are equally sure EU is supargut end taking a hike would be an economic disaster and threaten world peace. And, eyes eagerly gleaming, they will often add anyone who thinks otherwise is a xenophobe, a hitler and a ligur. Those two things are not mutually exclusive. EU is a horrible neoliberal piece of poo poo dragging everyone down. However, they have historically also implemented some pretty drat good legislation. So there exists a thing called nuance. Brexit supporters and right-wing eurosceptics are racists and neoliberal scum who would immediately do away with all worker and environmental protection laws. Brexit debacle has also lead to more prominence of different right-wing eurosceptic groups, many of which are basically National Socialistic-Democratic Area Power Nation's Workers' Parties. Also you are wrong, ligurs are not hitlers. Hitlers speak well and create strawmen, ligurs do not understand speech and copy strawmen.
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Jun 23, 2016 11:44
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It is literally a "lesser of two evils" vote.
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Jun 23, 2016 11:47
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Ligur posted:A thing which amazes me are posters who on the first post declare the hitlersatan that is the Troika is responsible for making Greece miserable and basically a destitute third world country (and Spain and Portugal poor etc) but in the next post are equally sure EU is supargut end taking a hike would be an economic disaster and threaten world peace. And, eyes eagerly gleaming, they will often add anyone who thinks otherwise is a xenophobe, a hitler and a ligur. Basically, the Euro was a good idea but required additional reforms of the EU. These did not come and now the Euro is partly responsible for the mess that Greece is in today, and it's the main reason why the Troika could take control of Greece. This part of the EU is super lovely and urgently needs to be changed, but I fear such a change won't come for a long time, if at all. But Britain is not in the Eurozone and never will be, so it's unaffected by the Euro debacle. For the Brits, the negatives of leaving the EU outweigh the benefits. And as others have said, there are some serious lovely neoliberal policies on the EU level, yet for most of the right wing people leading the Brexit campaign, the EU is not neoliberal enough. And if you think the EU is all bad, please ask our Eastern European posters what they think about EU led anti-corruption efforts in their countries.
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Jun 23, 2016 11:48
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Ligur posted:A thing which amazes me are posters who on the first post declare the hitlersatan that is the Troika is responsible for making Greece miserable and basically a destitute third world country (and Spain and Portugal poor etc) but in the next post are equally sure EU is supargut end taking a hike would be an economic disaster and threaten world peace. And, eyes eagerly gleaming, they will often add anyone who thinks otherwise is a xenophobe, a hitler and a ligur. Easy. The EU is a lovely neo-liberal nightmare. Leaving the EU would be an even worse nightmare filled with the sort of libertarian bastards who get off to images of the plebs starving. It is the case of the least terrible option, staying in the EU & trying to reform it to something less terrible rather than just setting the country on fire & giving up to the gods of austerity. The other problem being that the people arguing for Remain have mostly focused on the xenophobic arguments. There have been a few people making the socialist case for Brexit but they've been more or less ignored in favour of some more Boris Johnson & Michael Gove & Nigel Farage and their rhetoric that appeals to arseholes like you.
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Jun 23, 2016 13:09
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Have you guys read any of Paul Krugman's many, many takedowns of the euro zone? He compares it to the US monetary area, which I think is enlightening. The US gets away with a monetary union of rural Mississippi and San Francisco (a huge disparity in wages and standard of living) by transferring tens of billions of dollars per year, routinely, from wealthy to poor states. Not loan, transfer. For example in 2008 during the housing bust the federal government gave the state of Florida 5% of Florida's GDP in automatic transfers through federal programs. Europe has decided to unite similarly disparate economies in monetary union and then act like capital flows will be fine and there will never be a need for large wealth transfers in the absence of a floating currency. And then punish the poo poo out of the poor states when this doesn't work. Thing is this objection was brought up in the early 90s. http://nytimes.com/blogs/krugman/2012/06/24/revenge-of-the-optimum-currency-area/ Anyway I'm sure the thread is occupied with Brexit but I thought this was interesting. There are strings attached to US federal money, but no one in Congress would dare tell the government of Florida what to do with its bonds or budget or else we'll cut you off. The banks that partially pay for these automatic transfer programs through US treasuries have no say at all in what money goes to Florida. I don't think anyone in the EU would vote for the level of political integration of a US state with the rest of the union, but here we have a situation with Greece and Germany where EU institutions seem to have much more control over an ostensible partner in a loose union than the US Federal government enjoys over a state. Did the troika end up in charge by design, or because everybody pretended this obvious sort of crisis would never happen and they ended up in charge by default when the system left the purse strings to them? And this circles bank around to an earlier question of mine: when the president of France runs on deficit spending and wins, who is the person who sits him down in a room and tells him the banks won't let him, and what is that person's title?
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Jun 23, 2016 13:14
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Arglebargle III posted:Did the troika end up in charge by design, or because everybody pretended this obvious sort of crisis would never happen and they ended up in charge by default when the system left the purse strings to them? The Troika was invented after the poo poo hit the fan and was the only group people could come up with in a short amount of time. Arglebargle III posted:And this circles bank around to an earlier question of mine: when the president of France runs on deficit spending and wins, who is the person who sits him down in a room and tells him the banks won't let him, and what is that person's title? Well, it would be no one person. He could run the deficit for a time but the European Commission would step in at some point with fines (the title of the person responsible would be President of the European Commission, a somewhat democratically elected official). Then, if he just went on with his deficit spending while paying the fines, the next problem for this imaginary president of France would be that interest rates skyrocket because people start to doubt that he would be able to pay it back. At some point he would no longer be able to finance his debt on the open market at which point he would have to apply for an ESM adjustment program, so he would have to talk to the heads of government of the EU and their ministers of finance, who make up the board of governors of the ESM. In the end everyone is democratically legitimated through the process of their home country.
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Jun 23, 2016 13:22
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Kruggman's commentary was widely circulated when the Greek crisis was at its peak, so thread regulars are familiar with his arguments and statements. The troika is in charge by design. You asked who's in charge of it earlier; it's made up of the European Commission, the ECB, the IMF, and more recently the ESM (making it technically a quadriga, and you may sometimes see it referred to as such). The IMF's inclusion is a bit of a thorn as it's a non-EU organisation, and was brought in at the insistence of Germany for that reason (the stated reason is because they have "technical knowledge" with regards to bailouts, however). You can look up how these organisations are set up and who the people in charge of them are if you want a breakdown of the unelected bureaucrats you were asking about. Of note should be that, as of the latest Europarliament election, in all but technical terms the head of the European Commission is an elected position, so that's slightly more democratic now than it was prior to 2014.
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Jun 23, 2016 13:22
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Arglebargle III posted:Have you guys read any of Paul Krugman's many, many takedowns of the euro zone? He compares it to the US monetary area, which I think is enlightening. Given what the economies of some US states look like, I'm not so sure you can use the USA as some sort of shining example to be followed - fiscal federalism certainly hasn't helped Mississippi become all that much less of a shithole, has it? Besides, all US states other than Vermont are required to run balanced budgets according to their own laws or constitutions, which means that the states punish themselves in an economic downturn as opposed to the central government doing it. Florida would have no room at all to commit to extra spending on Keynesian stimulus during a recession.
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Jun 23, 2016 14:07
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Thread regulars know all about this. It's just the simple fact that monetary union without greater fiscal union is bad. But the idea was that fiscal union would follow monetary union. That didn't happen and seems unlikely to happen in the future, so the Euro became overall a negative thing. But returning to the old individual currencies would also suck a lot, so we are stuck with this bad deal 
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Jun 23, 2016 14:20
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Arglebargle III posted:Have you guys read any of Paul Krugman's many, many takedowns of the euro zone? He compares it to the US monetary area, which I think is enlightening. but you got your earlier question answered? 
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Jun 23, 2016 14:22
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Arglebargle III posted:Have you guys read any of Paul Krugman's many, many takedowns of the euro zone? He compares it to the US monetary area, which I think is enlightening. You have only to look at the Puerto Rico bailout to see congress behaving in much the same way as the troika.
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Jun 23, 2016 15:45
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What's going on with the shooting in a theater in Germany?
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Jun 23, 2016 16:44
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The Real Foogla posted:but you got your earlier question answered? Answers in this page have been great, thanks. I had no idea the troika was so ad hoc. I want to stress again I haven't followed Europe that much so I am naive about the topic and want to get a better understanding of EU institutions and why they've been so dysfunctional.
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Jun 23, 2016 16:48
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