EU Politics: I miss Renaults(don't make fun of me)

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > EU Politics: I miss Renaults(don't make fun of me)

GaussianCopula: Jun 5, 2011; Jews fleeing the Holocaust are not in any way comparable to North Africans, who don't flee genocide but want to enjoy the social welfare systems of Northern Europe.

It's also important to note that concerns about "Jobs" and "Social Justice" are evergreens that will always score high in this kind of poll. Germany overall has 4.7% unemployment rate and Ba-W� is even below that with 4.1%, which is basically full employment. Poverty is certainly not the reason people are voting for the AfD.

YF-23 posted:

I didn't say that refugees were not important to it, they obviously were the catalyst to AfD blowing up like it did, but the point is that there have been other factors bubbling underneath the surface that got a lot of people to think they're a viable choice when it started to gain momentum. 56% that care about refugees means 44% that don't, and that's a whole lot. Like I said, that's not a surprise. It's a viable protest party and people who want to protest will vote for it even if they don't care for its flagship issue.

It's not that 44% don't care about refugees, they just said wasn't the main reason why they voted for the AfD. A good portion of this group can be explained as AfD voters, who did not want the party to be portrayed as racist and therefore decided that it will look much better if they give reasons like "job" (the refugees are gonna steal them) and "social justice" (the refugees are getting everything).

GaussianCopula fucked around with this message at 12:34 on Mar 14, 2016

# ¿ Mar 14, 2016 12:32

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 17:19

GaussianCopula: Jun 5, 2011; Jews fleeing the Holocaust are not in any way comparable to North Africans, who don't flee genocide but want to enjoy the social welfare systems of Northern Europe.

YF-23 posted:

That cannot be the single primary reason they've voting for AfD because then the total goes over 100%. And I have no doubt that at least some of the non-refugee responses were dogwhistle, but I also believe (as a personal assessment) that the great majority of them were not.

The people questioned were allowed to select up to 2 reasons, that's why it goes over 100%.

The AfD has literally no program except for "refugees not welcome" that would appeal to ~the poor~

# ¿ Mar 14, 2016 12:54

GaussianCopula: Jun 5, 2011; Jews fleeing the Holocaust are not in any way comparable to North Africans, who don't flee genocide but want to enjoy the social welfare systems of Northern Europe.

Merkel moving to little to late on the Balkan's route. It's still a mystery to me why no German politician has embraced the Macedonian solution to the problem as a stop-gap measure but instead everyone to the right of Merkel stuck to their guns about "national borders".

quote:

Regarding the Balkan route, yes, there is no doubt that Germany, at the moment, benefits from the fact that fewer people are coming and that also is connected to the closure of the Greek-Macedonian border," Merkel said during a news conference.

"I have never spoken out against national measures. I have spoken out in favour of border controls, better registration, deportations, the asylum packages," she added when asked if more national, rather than Europe-wide, measures should be deployed.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-europe-migrants-germany-idUKKCN0WG1HE

# ¿ Mar 14, 2016 15:26

GaussianCopula: Jun 5, 2011; Jews fleeing the Holocaust are not in any way comparable to North Africans, who don't flee genocide but want to enjoy the social welfare systems of Northern Europe.

Dominionix posted:

Exactly why I asked my original question, I wanted other people's views instead of the "everyone will die if you leave / stay" in our media.

If you leave you will suffer a recession and depending on how dysfunctional your government is during the negotiations of the exit (I don't have high hopes for you, given how retarded even the supposed sane Tories are), you will either end up with a deal like Norway, where you have to pay into the EU budget and follow it's rules for access to the single market (best case) or Britain will fall back on the WTO trade rules and be utterly hosed because you are shut out of the financial and service market while your own product markets are still relatively open.

That's not even touching on the question of how you will deal with the EU citizens currently living and working in Britain, who are providing essential services for your economy or how the Scots will react to the news.

Basically the best outcome is that the UK will go from having a lot of privileges even compared to regular EU members to being a serf of the EU, while the worst case is that you become a higher developed North Korea.

In other News: Macedonia is loving incompetent and seems to have forgotten the secure the border merely 4km away from Idomeni (where ~12k refugees are sitting) leading to a #marchofhope ...

Next time you want to close your border, please ask for qualified help in Germany, there is some experience available...

GaussianCopula fucked around with this message at 16:42 on Mar 14, 2016

# ¿ Mar 14, 2016 16:35

GaussianCopula: Jun 5, 2011; Jews fleeing the Holocaust are not in any way comparable to North Africans, who don't flee genocide but want to enjoy the social welfare systems of Northern Europe.

Dominionix posted:

Whilst you are likely right that in the event of a Brexit the UK would have to pay for access to the European market (resulting in a similar scenario as Norway where we still commit a portion of money but get no say in the rule-making process) as I understand it the UK is a consumer in the European marketplace - ergo, as a nation we import far more than we export, so therefore would denying Britain access to the European marketplace not be a pretty loving stupid move on the part of the remaining EU members?

While it is true that the UK is a net importer from the EU, you have to look at it would change if the UK went back to a WTO trade regime (the fallback position unless the UK wants to quit the WTO, literally becoming North Korea). Under the WTO rules good can be imported fairly easily, especially because it's rather unlikely that the UK would want start a trade war with the EU, while services (including financial services) are pretty much shut out. Given the imbalance between goods (that's what the UK is importing) and services (that's what the UK is exporting) in the trade balance between the EU and GB, your trade deficit would probably become even larger if you leave.

As to the question of stupid it would be for the EU to deny Britain access, well, if you believe that the EU is making all it's decisions purely based on what outcome makes the most sense economically, I have some very bad news for you. It's rather likely that the EU would want to turn Brexit into a case study why it's a really, really stupid idea to leave the EU than that they care about a few shekels Germany's export industry is going to lose. It's also worth noting that GB only accounts for something like 3% of EU exports while the EU accounts for 44% of the UK's exports.

As for the Norway deal, keep in mind that the reason you would be leaving is that you don't want free movement, well, Norway and even Switzerland had to accept free movement, so such a deal might be a non-starter for the post-Brexit UK government, which means you get a worse deal.

Dominionix posted:

There also seem to be a lot of statistics suggesting that the cost of contributions made by the UK far outweigh the economic benefits, though I struggle to identify if this is just "out" campaigns dressing up statistics to suit their own argument. What are your thoughts on the claims that Britain could simply go on to foster their own trade agreements with China / Australia / Russia et al?

Again, the biggest problem for the UK is that they are mostly exporting services and are that it is rather de-industrialized. You can make all the trade agreements you want with Russia, China (two economies that have their best years behind them) and Australia, but what are you going to sell them? Add to that the fact that distance is not a negligible factor in trade, which makes me wonder how big a factor a country like Australia can ever be?

Your EU membership comes with a bill of ~6billion pound, which is about ~0.3% of your GDP. Do you really think the effects of a Brexit would be less than a 0.3% reduction in GDP growth?

# ¿ Mar 14, 2016 18:18

GaussianCopula: Jun 5, 2011; Jews fleeing the Holocaust are not in any way comparable to North Africans, who don't flee genocide but want to enjoy the social welfare systems of Northern Europe.

Looks like the #marchofhope organized by some NGOs in Greece today ended in tragedy but got them some nice pictures. But have a look for yourselves.

It started like this

https://twitter.com/GreekAnalyst/status/709354953979076608

until they encountered this river

https://twitter.com/MovingEurope/status/709360991490981889

where this happened

https://twitter.com/MSF_Sea/status/709353981416439808

and now those that survived get a trip back home (Idomeni) courtesy of the Macedonian army

https://twitter.com/MSF_Sea/status/709450506574426112

but they got #marchofhope trending on twitter, so that's something right? RIGHT?

# ¿ Mar 14, 2016 20:14

GaussianCopula: Jun 5, 2011; Jews fleeing the Holocaust are not in any way comparable to North Africans, who don't flee genocide but want to enjoy the social welfare systems of Northern Europe.

OwlFancier posted:

How else does the army normally transport human beings? Would it be preferable if the trucks were uncovered so the human beings can get rained on?

All else aside that's a weird complaint to have.

Well, considering that NGOs printed this map and spread it in Idomeni

to get some naughty pictures of Greek and Macedonian officials reacting to the #marchofhope, it's not to hard to imagine that certain NGOs or people working at NGOs would be very happy if the refugees would be transported in uncovered trucks through cold and rain. Makes for better pictures.

# ¿ Mar 14, 2016 20:20

GaussianCopula: Jun 5, 2011; Jews fleeing the Holocaust are not in any way comparable to North Africans, who don't flee genocide but want to enjoy the social welfare systems of Northern Europe.

A Buttery Pastry posted:

Why is the map written in Terrorist?

e: I have been informed that this is what Arabic looks like.

Oh by the way, the Roman letters in the lower right corner are supposed to read "Kommando Norbert Bl�m", Norbert Bl�m being a former German labor and social minister of Germany (CDU) who famously said "Die Renten sind sicher." (the pensions are safe).

This is where he currently sleeps

(yes, that's Norbert in his tent in Idomeni)

# ¿ Mar 14, 2016 21:10

GaussianCopula: Jun 5, 2011; Jews fleeing the Holocaust are not in any way comparable to North Africans, who don't flee genocide but want to enjoy the social welfare systems of Northern Europe.

Because Germany has become more like other European nations you want to start a genocide?

# ¿ Mar 15, 2016 15:30

GaussianCopula: Jun 5, 2011; Jews fleeing the Holocaust are not in any way comparable to North Africans, who don't flee genocide but want to enjoy the social welfare systems of Northern Europe.

Apparently it's okay for a migration minister in Greece to have refugees live in conditions that some describe as worse than most refugee camps in Africa and have activists in those camp that propagate false information to provoke a confrontation between illegal migrants and officials in Greece and Macedonia, but if he should call Macedonia by its rightful name instead of the revanchist slur most Greeks like to use, there are calls from both the opposition and the government for him to step down, and the leader of the European Left in the last EP elections convenes a meeting of ministers to discuss the issue.

quote:

Defense Minister and Independent Greeks leader Panos Kammenos was expected to hold an emergency meeting of his nationalist party�s parliamentary group on Thursday morning after demanding the resignation of Migration Policy Minister Yiannis Mouzalas late Tuesday.

Kammenos made his demand after Mouzalas referred to Greece�s neighbor, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), simply as �Macedonia� in an interview with Skai TV.

Mouzalas apologized for his �gaffe� but Kammenos said that an apology would not suffice and called on Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to sack him.

Tsipras convened a meeting of ministers on Wednesday morning to discuss the issue.

Kammenos�s call for Mouzalas to be removed came shortly after New Democracy issued a statement suggesting that the minister should step down over his comment. Greece has been in dispute with FYROM over its name since the 1990s.

http://www.ekathimerini.com/207002/article/ekathimerini/news/coalition-partner-kammenos-demands-ministers-resignation

PS: Well, looks like events are faster than my posting, the minister in question has submitted his resignation.

https://twitter.com/EfiEfthimiou/status/710032905989443584

# ¿ Mar 16, 2016 10:22

GaussianCopula: Jun 5, 2011; Jews fleeing the Holocaust are not in any way comparable to North Africans, who don't flee genocide but want to enjoy the social welfare systems of Northern Europe.

It's EUCO time again and as usual, the brilliant Peter Spiegel already has the draft of the deal http://blogs.ft.com/brusselsblog/files/2016/03/EuCoMarch2016.pdf

# ¿ Mar 17, 2016 12:55

GaussianCopula: Jun 5, 2011; Jews fleeing the Holocaust are not in any way comparable to North Africans, who don't flee genocide but want to enjoy the social welfare systems of Northern Europe.

LemonDrizzle posted:

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/710495565348540417
AfD pulling two thirds of the SPD's vote share nationally.

Given the results of the two western states last Sunday not really surprising. The only interesting question going forward is going to be whether the AfD is going to abandon their very neo-liberal program going forward and follow the Front National approach with a mostly leftist economic policy. If they don't do it, they will have a hard time going forward, especially in the East.

But it is likely that they will be able to establish themselves long term, given that even if Merkel solved the refugee crisis today/tomorrow (rather unlikely), the effects of the influx will last long enough to stay in the minds of (mostly stupid) voters.

# ¿ Mar 17, 2016 18:21

GaussianCopula: Jun 5, 2011; Jews fleeing the Holocaust are not in any way comparable to North Africans, who don't flee genocide but want to enjoy the social welfare systems of Northern Europe.

Can someone explain to me why this chart looks the way it does? Why was the Global Financial Crisis and Euro crisis only a hiccup for Germany while most other European nations seem to have a lot of trouble dealing with it?

https://www.google.de/publicdata/ex...dl=de&ind=false

YF-23 posted:

Also, minor post formatting request: if you're quoting a post with a tweet in it, please remove the tweet unless it's the specific thing you want to comment on. When the page loads it doesn't take into account the height of the tweet embed so loading pages with tweets in them ends up with them getting off-centred when the page finishes loading, which isn't so bad if it's one or two tweets but it becomes annoying if there's a bunch.

I don't have that problem in Chrome.

# ¿ Mar 17, 2016 18:43

GaussianCopula: Jun 5, 2011; Jews fleeing the Holocaust are not in any way comparable to North Africans, who don't flee genocide but want to enjoy the social welfare systems of Northern Europe.

Love those EUCO pictures with Merkel being the only person allowed to wear a color that is not dark blue.Yes, I see the woman front left, but shirts don't count

Also: Love the Finns for being a little nerdy

https://twitter.com/AnneSjoholm/status/710459218239823872

GaussianCopula fucked around with this message at 19:53 on Mar 17, 2016

# ¿ Mar 17, 2016 19:48

GaussianCopula: Jun 5, 2011; Jews fleeing the Holocaust are not in any way comparable to North Africans, who don't flee genocide but want to enjoy the social welfare systems of Northern Europe.

Pluskut Tukker posted:

You may be interested in this study of the German labour market response (.pdf). In short, firms had a lot of internal flexibility: employees took saved-up working-time reductions, took shorter working hours, and firms kept people aboard (hoarded their labour) by accepting lower productivity. Additionally, and somewhat luckily for Germany, the firms hardest hit by the crisis were the ones that previously were struggling to fill vacancies. As a result, they did not need to lay off workers; they just lost the need to hire more. Additionally, it seems that while Germany kept creating new jobs, more of these were in the service sector and fall under the category of 'atypical employment', i.e. agency/ part-time work with poorer wages and working conditions (another study (.pdf) which makes this point). And while the effect of strong employment protections against layoffs is disputed, it can't have hurt (in Spain for instance the initial explosion in the unemployment rate affected almost entirely people with temporary contracts, and not those with protected ones).

There was also an important role for the government in compensating employees with as much as 67% of the foregone net wages due to shorter working hours through the Kurzarbeit scheme, which saved ~400,000 jobs. The Netherlands had a similar scheme which lasted until mid-2011, and also helped keep unemployment down in that period.

So the German labour market worked better than elsewhere. Unfortunately, the German model is not so easy to replicate, since labour market institutions tend to be based on historic developments, on the kinds of industries a country has, on the education level of the available workers, etc. usw.

(all this in addition to what Chainsaw Charlie said)

So basically German is proof positive that automatic stabilizers work and fiscal stimuli are not needed?

# ¿ Mar 17, 2016 20:25

GaussianCopula: Jun 5, 2011; Jews fleeing the Holocaust are not in any way comparable to North Africans, who don't flee genocide but want to enjoy the social welfare systems of Northern Europe.

As the refugee deal with Turkey seems to take shape, it will be very interesting to see how refugees react once they learn that their chances to get relocated to Germany are ~19% based on the quota already agreed on (source http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affair...on_annex_en.pdf)?

I guess you could make a killer webshow, where a group of 100 refugees gets distributed between EU countries by competing in silly challenges, maybe even include online/telephone voting?

Xoidanor posted:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/16/france-state-of-emergency-many-forms-pupils-allowed-to-smoke-in-school-paris

Is this real?

Maybe they could just send a police officer to enforce the actual laws in front of the school instead of actively helping their children to ruin their health? But France is strange anyway.

GaussianCopula fucked around with this message at 10:27 on Mar 18, 2016

# ¿ Mar 18, 2016 10:25

GaussianCopula: Jun 5, 2011; Jews fleeing the Holocaust are not in any way comparable to North Africans, who don't flee genocide but want to enjoy the social welfare systems of Northern Europe.

And here is what David Cameron was focused on during this summit, Tampon VAT. For some reason it's bad if you tax them, because women need them regularly. By that logic a lot of stuff should not be taxed, so I'm not sure why this is such a big deal.

quote:

Prime Minister David Cameron won backing at a European Union summit on Thursday to end the so-called "tampon tax" that has become a political soccer for Britons campaigning to leave the EU in a June referendum.

"We're a step closer to ending the tampon tax," a British government spokeswoman told reporters after EU leaders agreed to express support in the summit statement for an adjustment to UK value-add tax (VAT) on women's sanitary products.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-eu-tampontax-idUSKCN0WJ2YV

# ¿ Mar 18, 2016 11:28

GaussianCopula: Jun 5, 2011; Jews fleeing the Holocaust are not in any way comparable to North Africans, who don't flee genocide but want to enjoy the social welfare systems of Northern Europe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8Q1IRi72_A

Sooooo goood.

# ¿ Mar 18, 2016 13:29

GaussianCopula: Jun 5, 2011; Jews fleeing the Holocaust are not in any way comparable to North Africans, who don't flee genocide but want to enjoy the social welfare systems of Northern Europe.

https://twitter.com/dannyctkemp/status/710837427573809153

Better get on a boat today.

# ¿ Mar 18, 2016 15:39

GaussianCopula: Jun 5, 2011; Jews fleeing the Holocaust are not in any way comparable to North Africans, who don't flee genocide but want to enjoy the social welfare systems of Northern Europe.

Freezer posted:

If you make the boat ride and are returned to Turkey, does it kill your chances of being selected for asylum in the future?

You get a "lower priority" than those people that did not enter the EU illegally, which basically means yes, no chance for you to get relocated directly from Turkey.

YF-23 posted:

Are these sort of relocations even legal?

It's legal until there is a legally binding judgement that it's not.

# ¿ Mar 18, 2016 16:34

GaussianCopula: Jun 5, 2011; Jews fleeing the Holocaust are not in any way comparable to North Africans, who don't flee genocide but want to enjoy the social welfare systems of Northern Europe.

CommieGIR posted:

I don't think you understand how 'refugees' work. Sure hope the despotic dictator they are fleeing gives them time to fill out the proper forms!

That's how the US are doing it.

But the refugees in question here can flee to Turkey and apply there for resettlement (relocation is what might happen to the refugees currently in Greece) in the EU. If you don't fill out the correct forms, you will have to stay in Turkey. Should you try to get to Europe anyway via smugglers, you will get send back to Turkey.

CrazyLoon posted:

So, basically if you're a genuine refugee from places like Syria, and desperate enough to risk entering the EU illegaly, welcome to up-and-coming hellhole Turkey, but if you're one of the calculating migrants from places like Algeria or Morocco and know to just squat in Turkey for awhile, thanks to social media, you'll get express relocation? Wonderful logic there. But I guess it's just numbers and who cares, they're all brown people anyway amirite? *sigh*

Welp...gonna be interesting to watch how well Greece does in rounding up all of the ones already on their side. My guess is 'not at all'.

No, only Syrians are allowed to apply for resettlement and given that the supply of spots will be much smaller than the demand, expect fairly tight checks on whether people are really from Syria.

# ¿ Mar 18, 2016 16:53

GaussianCopula: Jun 5, 2011; Jews fleeing the Holocaust are not in any way comparable to North Africans, who don't flee genocide but want to enjoy the social welfare systems of Northern Europe.

CrazyLoon posted:

At least there's that...still, the most desperate ones in need of asylum will get hosed it seems.

I don't think you can simplify it like that. You could also argue the comparatively richer, stronger, more resilient get hosed while others that are much worse of now actually have a shot at getting into the EU and there is no longer an incentive to risk your life crossing the Aegean.

# ¿ Mar 18, 2016 17:01

GaussianCopula: Jun 5, 2011; Jews fleeing the Holocaust are not in any way comparable to North Africans, who don't flee genocide but want to enjoy the social welfare systems of Northern Europe.

Freezer posted:

Yes, but they will no longer be Europe's problem, so MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

Well it looks like they might use that banner in another context today

https://twitter.com/jimbrunsden/status/710863905644539905

# ¿ Mar 18, 2016 17:29

GaussianCopula: Jun 5, 2011; Jews fleeing the Holocaust are not in any way comparable to North Africans, who don't flee genocide but want to enjoy the social welfare systems of Northern Europe.

V. Illych L. posted:

the focus with closing the balkan route is also stupid in a big way. if there's one thing refugee crises have taught us, it's that people can and will find new, less safe routes when the safer ones are closed down

I don't think you can argue that the number of refugees arriving is not dependent on the question of how expansive and how dangerous it is to get to Europe. You won't be able to reduce the number of arrivals to zero, but you can reduce it substantially.

# ¿ Mar 18, 2016 17:44

GaussianCopula: Jun 5, 2011; Jews fleeing the Holocaust are not in any way comparable to North Africans, who don't flee genocide but want to enjoy the social welfare systems of Northern Europe.

YF-23 posted:

When you cut out safe passages of entry for refugees you're only leaving unsafe passages for them, resulting in deaths that would have been avoided otherwise. Sure, it may not be a zombie apocalypse, but don't pretend these deaths are not the result of the border policies. So many people have died trying to cross the Aegean in rubber dingies because the land border with Turkey was fenced by the Samaras government, and the Tsipras governments have either lacked the political will or capital to reopen it.

Hint: Not every human has the god given right to live in central Europe. Breaking the law involves certain risks that others are not liable for.

# ¿ Mar 18, 2016 19:03

GaussianCopula: Jun 5, 2011; Jews fleeing the Holocaust are not in any way comparable to North Africans, who don't flee genocide but want to enjoy the social welfare systems of Northern Europe.

YF-23 posted:

That in no way means Europe can wash its hands clean of the deaths that result from its border policies. Even if the migrants are illegally trying to enter that does not mean their dying in the process is acceptable. At all.

While that is true, the solution can not be to open all borders and let everyone in, because not only would it lead to a very fast collapse of the welfare state but moreover it would give rise to nationalistic movements, as in the end, the demos of most (all?) European nations will decide that they would rather keep their welfare state, even if that means a few humans have to die.

Therefore we should all celebrate the deal that was made today, which allows legal immigration but disincentivises illegal (and dangerous) migration.

# ¿ Mar 18, 2016 19:15

GaussianCopula: Jun 5, 2011; Jews fleeing the Holocaust are not in any way comparable to North Africans, who don't flee genocide but want to enjoy the social welfare systems of Northern Europe.

It looks like there was at least passive support for the ISIS terrorists in Molenbeek

https://twitter.com/bopanc/status/711139844001546240
https://twitter.com/james_morgan/status/710919262647525377

Gaj posted:

So as a terrible American leftist college educated waste I have to ask, how is Denmark's "seize all refugee property" working out. I know it was a proposal along with increasing pork production by 200%, but when compared to the German elections, how has the Danish proposal to migrants been met. This is just a general question as to how Denmark's position has been accepted by other Euro-Nations.

It was already standard operating procedure in many other European nations to seize all valuables over a certain limit (~1000� usually) as the state can't be expected to pay for peoples living, who have enough money/valuables on their own.

GaussianCopula fucked around with this message at 11:43 on Mar 19, 2016

# ¿ Mar 19, 2016 11:41

GaussianCopula: Jun 5, 2011; Jews fleeing the Holocaust are not in any way comparable to North Africans, who don't flee genocide but want to enjoy the social welfare systems of Northern Europe.

waitwhatno posted:

So, a tampon maker could recover the VAT on their supplies, but the supply maker couldn't do the same with their own supplies? Why would the costs for consumers go up because of this?

Basically businesses don't pay VAT on their inputs, because they can subtract the output VAT (VAT payed by the consumer) from it. In the case of zero rated products, there is no output VAT and therefore the producer has to pay full VAT on their (not VAT exempt) inputs. This can result in higher pre-tax consumer prices, because the producer has to increase the price to compensate for it.

# ¿ Mar 19, 2016 12:43

GaussianCopula: Jun 5, 2011; Jews fleeing the Holocaust are not in any way comparable to North Africans, who don't flee genocide but want to enjoy the social welfare systems of Northern Europe.

waitwhatno posted:

Yeah, that's how I always imagined the system to work, but the text seems to say the exact opposite:

"By that I mean that when a business makes an item that is zero-rated it can recover the VAT of some of the associated costs of production."

And I still don't see how it could actually increase consumer prices. The manufacturing costs go up, but the product price is also lowered by the tax exemption at the same time. I mean, the manufacturer could never recover more money from his suppliers, than the consumers paid in taxes. That's the whole idea of VAT.

Probably a typo, because in the next sentence they say the exact opposite. As for the consumer price, it would go up only before taxes, not if you include VAT.

In the end debating the classification of singular items in a tiered VAT system does not get you anywhere, because there will always be cases where you can make an argument that this or that should be taxed higher/lower. Getting rid of a tiered VAT system and charging the mainline rate on everything would solve this problem though.

# ¿ Mar 19, 2016 13:14

GaussianCopula: Jun 5, 2011; Jews fleeing the Holocaust are not in any way comparable to North Africans, who don't flee genocide but want to enjoy the social welfare systems of Northern Europe.

Didn't people tell me ISIS terrorists would never have to travel on refugee routes?

https://twitter.com/bopanc/status/711242398471479296

# ¿ Mar 19, 2016 18:30

GaussianCopula: Jun 5, 2011; Jews fleeing the Holocaust are not in any way comparable to North Africans, who don't flee genocide but want to enjoy the social welfare systems of Northern Europe.

YF-23 posted:

Of the people in their community that have ties to/are members of ISIS.

Are you telling me that Molembeek, Belgium, is practically under the control of ISIS?

Cat Mattress posted:

No, you're building a strawman.

It was said that these terrorists were mostly EU citizens and therefore could travel like tourists. It was said that they didn't need to travel on refugee routes unless they did it so deliberately to tar refugees.

Do you have any proof that the refugees that took part in the attacks deliberately traveled as refugees while they had other options? Otherwise I'm calling bullshit on this claim.

# ¿ Mar 19, 2016 19:16

GaussianCopula: Jun 5, 2011; Jews fleeing the Holocaust are not in any way comparable to North Africans, who don't flee genocide but want to enjoy the social welfare systems of Northern Europe.

Flowers For Algeria posted:

Given that the only reason why the caught Abdeslam is because some dude snitched on him, this whole conversation is baffling

Do you have any source for this? According to my information, they found him because of wiretaps and a suspiciously large pizza order.

# ¿ Mar 20, 2016 08:09

GaussianCopula: Jun 5, 2011; Jews fleeing the Holocaust are not in any way comparable to North Africans, who don't flee genocide but want to enjoy the social welfare systems of Northern Europe.

Randler posted:

Don't forget that changing tampon VAT rate from 5% to zero-rate increases from producer to retailer while keeping end prices at the same level. How are the chances Osborne has been visited by some nice industry lobbyists as well?

Nah, the far more likely reason is that Cameron wanted to have another "victory" in Europe to show that he can reform the EU and that Britain should vote to remain.

# ¿ Mar 20, 2016 22:42

GaussianCopula: Jun 5, 2011; Jews fleeing the Holocaust are not in any way comparable to North Africans, who don't flee genocide but want to enjoy the social welfare systems of Northern Europe.

It's official now, Greece is no longer considered to be a developed economy

https://twitter.com/Jens_Bastian/status/711791713757560832

# ¿ Mar 21, 2016 12:36

GaussianCopula: Jun 5, 2011; Jews fleeing the Holocaust are not in any way comparable to North Africans, who don't flee genocide but want to enjoy the social welfare systems of Northern Europe.

Charlie Mopps posted:

What a roaring success for austerity.

I don't get that logic. It's like saying "surgery is bad" because you were unable to save someone who got his head blast off with a shotgun.

Do you honestly believe that either the Greek state was/is not in dire need of reform and that there would have been even the slightest hint of political will to enact such reforms, if Greece were given enough money to continue to run a high deficit for longer? I'm not even going to talk about the question, whether such payments would have been politically sustainable in the rest of Europe.

# ¿ Mar 21, 2016 17:02

GaussianCopula: Jun 5, 2011; Jews fleeing the Holocaust are not in any way comparable to North Africans, who don't flee genocide but want to enjoy the social welfare systems of Northern Europe.

Tesseraction posted:

Conversely, you're arguing that someone should cure leukaemia with leeches. Bloodletting (austerity) has its place. Greece is showing that it is not working.

Greece needs fundamental reform, but right now your patient has turned green, emitted a funny smell and started speaking French for no reason. At what point do you stop applying leeches?

Please tell me the course of action that would have been preferable in your mind.

# ¿ Mar 21, 2016 23:18

GaussianCopula: Jun 5, 2011; Jews fleeing the Holocaust are not in any way comparable to North Africans, who don't flee genocide but want to enjoy the social welfare systems of Northern Europe.

Not again...

https://twitter.com/Muschelschloss/status/712178420613062656

"only" injured reported so far, hopefully that won't change.

# ¿ Mar 22, 2016 08:43

GaussianCopula: Jun 5, 2011; Jews fleeing the Holocaust are not in any way comparable to North Africans, who don't flee genocide but want to enjoy the social welfare systems of Northern Europe.

https://twitter.com/LaurieHanna/status/712183238916218880

There goes the hope no one died. RIP.

GaussianCopula fucked around with this message at 08:51 on Mar 22, 2016

# ¿ Mar 22, 2016 08:47

GaussianCopula: Jun 5, 2011; Jews fleeing the Holocaust are not in any way comparable to North Africans, who don't flee genocide but want to enjoy the social welfare systems of Northern Europe.

:nsfw: https://twitter.com/AAhronheim/status/712179940788195328 :nsfw:

GaussianCopula fucked around with this message at 09:11 on Mar 22, 2016

# ¿ Mar 22, 2016 09:08

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 17:19

GaussianCopula: Jun 5, 2011; Jews fleeing the Holocaust are not in any way comparable to North Africans, who don't flee genocide but want to enjoy the social welfare systems of Northern Europe.

Well, given what we learned about Molenbeek something like this was probably to be expected, with all cells connected to Abdusalam springing into action asap because they fear that their cover is going to get blown.

# ¿ Mar 22, 2016 09:31

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > EU Politics: I miss Renaults(don't make fun of me)

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