European News Thread

This is a typical Brexit fantasy. "They need us more than we need them." The truth is, that the UK has a weak hand against the EU. A hard Brexit will also hurt the EU, but the shock will be absorbed among the member states, whefeas the UK will suffer quite a lot.

I have been following the Brexit debate in the UK quite closely, and it is rather illuminating how dilluded some Brexiteers still are. They still come up with platitudes like this, but they raraley make any suggestions on where exactly those advantages are. Instead more and more people realize how much a hard Brexit would disrupt their buisnesses.

Here is an example for this.
msn.com/en-ie/news/video/the-van-driver-being-put-out-of-business-by-brexit/vi-AAxGg67

It is a very fascinating reminder on how closely European economies are connected to each other.


1. It is the UK who has no trade deal at the moment. Not a single one.

2. The money is ultimately less in important. If the UK does not pay, we can always divide it among 27 member states, and possibly stop paying the pensions for British EU politicians.

None of that would be a problem if the EU were purely an economic alliance. How the free and unrestricted migration of the third-world surplus scum became part of the deal is mind boggling.

Without the memory of WWII, it maybe would be.

But the EU was build on the graves of that mass destruction... The core of the EU being to build a so close interconnectness between France and Germany first (then the other members) that any violent conflict would be impossible, destructive/suicidal for everybody the same...you can't achieve that with an economical and/or political alliance only.

That never worked in Europe.

Quite the contrary, the former building of alliances in Europe's history alway led to war sooner or later (WWI and WWII and most wars before).

You are right about the wars. Today, an intra-EU war is just simply impossible. That's one huge plus. Muslims are another matter which we already beat to death.

Steve Bannon, the former White House chief strategist, is gearing up for a very Europe-centric future.
Bannon told the Daily Beast that his plan is to offer a foil to George Soros' Open Society Foundation with his own populist organization that he says will be called The Movement. "Soros is brilliant," Bannon said. "He's evil but he's brilliant."

Here, read the article and educate yourself.
slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/07/steve-bannon-will-set-up-foundation-to-boost-the-far-right-in-europe.html

I read about Breitbart wanting to branch out to Germany and France before (2016)....that might happen or not. And also such a movement as Bannon envisiones might happen or not.

But all that is a far cry from "controlling" the EU, isn't it. Both have not even startet yet....

Nobody will take that dude seriously in mainland Europe - most of the people he deals with are football hooligans looking for some amphetimines and a punch up.

His tactics worked for a while in the UK and US where education levels are lower and the media more sensational. As it is he lasted about 6 months in government

And 20 million quid and 25 staff are not going to overthrow Western society.

Finally, we agree on something. Bannon and a couple of billionaires 'controlling' EU. The whole US can't, Russia can't, but Steve Bannon can. Maybe because God is on his side. Yeah, that's it. It must be God's plan.

It is, in fact that is how Trump got elected, by the grace of God.

Did he say that?

Nah, that what they tell you. I'm not going into details as obviously you wouldn't get it. Just let me tell you that 'no deal' will hurt the EU, Germany especially much more than Britain.


What is wrong? Your reading comprehension? I said that Poland's economy is improving since 1989. It doesn't mean that process was all peachy and right - quite the opposite. The only truism I'm reacting is the fact that you cannot ascribe that progress to one or other international organization or a government. It is due to the sturdiness and a hard work of the Polish people.

Once again please supply one economic indicator that has got worse since 2004.

Why? You can do it yourself. I don't get your question - economic indicators differ depend on a method and are there as a general guide not as real indicator of the economic wellbeing of a country.

One exmaple - a low unemployment. That would show as a indication of the economy getting better, gearing up to speed. Alternatively it could be misleading - it depends HOW that low unemployment had been achieved.

a, by a growing economy generating new jobs.
b, by a country exporting its working age unemployed population elsewhere.

In a case of 'a' it is a good thing.

in the case of 'b' not so much.

Yet both read in statistic as a sign of a growing economy. So rather than debate some statistical numbers alone let tall about issue on the ground and what it means. If you want to - that is.


For May 2018 it was 47% exports to the EU while imports from the EU for the same period 56%. Yet the devil is in the detail.
Exports to Germany - 3.0 bn.

Imports from Germany - 5.9 bn.

to USA - 3.8 bn.

from USA - 3.5 bn.

non EU exports were 16 bn.

non Eu imports - 17.6 bn.

EU exports - 14.1 bn.
EU imports - 22.3 bn.

German economy which is the EU economic engine depends on its exports to survive - 50% of its economy is depends on exports. . While British economy only in 20% is depended on some kind of exports/ import deals.

Britain was the first modern western economy which developed to a so called "after-industrial" economy. It de-industrialized in big parts and changed to a mainly service industry. Britain mainly no longer designs and/or builds goods for the export (with a few exceptions).

Alone the banking sector generates more income for the UK than some smaller EU country's whole GDP.
A banking sector which attracted firms from all over the world because of the language, the image of London as Europes first and biggest metropolis but mainly as the gateaway for the world into the EU.

Now imagine that with the gates into the EU being closed...and now try to tell me the UK will come out unscathed!

Once again, Britain may be losing and Germany gaining in the exchange. It was after all England's desire to exit from the Continent.
:-)

Your arguments are ridiculous. So economic improvements in Czech, Hungary, Poland outstripped all the other non EU countries like Armenia, Serbia, Russia, Ukraine, Albania etc not due to EU accession but rather to being hard working ?

Taken to its logical extension that would indicate that the richest countries in the world are also the hardest working.

As for your argument about unemployment then it can be disproved in 30 seconds by checking the EMPLOYMENT rate - which amazingly has increased rapidly in Poland and by a remarkable coincidence that starts to improve in 2004.

tradingeconomics.com/poland/employment-rate

Your arguments about German apparent dependence on the UK market again make no sense - to see who comes off worse you would just need to compare the percentage of exports going each way. The UKs would obviously be much higher. However I am not going to try and explain simple math to you as I have tried that a few times with dense Brexiteers. Rather you should wait until March when the UK gets rinsed in whatever the final deal is.

@Lyzko

Well, let us see and wait. There are sone reasons to believe that Germany might benefit long-term from Brexit (more qualified migrants will move to Germany instead of the UK, companies invest more in Germany to get EU access and sone banks moving to Franfurkt) but there are sone obvios disadvantages as well. I feel sorry for the young British people though who git cheated out of their future by an older generation.

Not at all. Your premise is ridiculous. Armenia, Ukraine wasn't even countries but a part of Soviet Union. Ukraine never was a country before 1990. Albania has it own sets of problems. Serbia fought a civil war and was attacked by the USA. Russia is not doing that bad given the act that invest heavily into military. Anyway Russia was always underperforming economically.

Poland and some random countries haven't started from the same point. It illustrate - nothing. In 1939 Poland outpaced by a long stretch Greece and Romania. After 1989 Romanian economy was still behind Poland's but Greece was doing much better. What does it tell you? Comparison can be useful if you have a point and knowledge to back it up otherwise they are useless anecdotes.

Yes, after 2004 Poland exported it unemployed.


No om the UK market. It depends much more on exports. My point is that in case of no deal Germany and EU stand to loose more than Britain. It not only about the math, it is more complex than a simple equation.

Right - its so complex that almost all economists and traders think it is total nonsense and cant understand it.

Yes Poland has exported some unemployed but as that graph shows it gas created more jobs even net of the migration. Simple for most rational people Or in fact anybody who has recently trying to recruit someone in Poland.

I am still waiting for you to provide an example of an economic indicator that has gone backwards since 2004. It will be a long wait because there are none.

....I've read Poland is trying to recruit laborers from the Philippines now! Christians, you know....:)

arabnews.com/node/1347361/world

How about some Mexicans from the US? They are on sale till the end of August.

From dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6028283/Up-20-people-feared-dead-sightseeing-plane-crashes-Swiss-Alps.html

Twenty people are killed after Nazi era WWII sightseeing plane crashes into Alps....

I am not German but I am sick and tired of seeing Nazi and German used as equivalents. If I were German, I would be seriously pissed off. I wonder why Brits do it. To be nice or to rub it in? How relevant is that 'Nazi-era' crap to this story? How about just 'and old German sightseeing plane'.

It's the Daily Fail. What do you expect?

Netflix documentaries made in the UK do the same bs with "Nazis". To them, every German soldier was a Nazi.

I always preferred the documentaries from the UK and/or the US to our own. They were just more interesting, alot less PC speak, alot less demonization...

Or maybe there were just made better...better producing, better cuts, better music, more interesting people interviewed, I dunno...

The same story as reported in the US by WTVD on yahoo.com:

Twenty people were killed in Switzerland when a World War II vintage plane crashed.

Highlighting is mine.

"Alte Tante Ju"....these things shouldn't fly anymore...

Well, some people like driving around in old cars, despite them not being as safe as new ones. I assume this was a similar case? Still a shame though of course, but they knew the risk.

A good rule to remember: if the damn plane is smaller the 737, don't be a suicidal idiot and run from it as fast as you can.

Trump just beat the entire Paris climate accord by reducing CO2 emission's by 40 million tons last year.
China added 120 million tons while India added another 95 million tons.
No wonder Trump pulled out of such a lost cause of the climate change hoax.
To put it simply, the U.S. has done more to reduce CO2 emissions than the rest of the combined world.
You go President Trump !

freedomnewsreport.com/2018/07/23/trumps-america-just-beat-the-entire-paris-climate-accord

Isn't it too late for that?

Trump though still denies global warming, so how smart can the dude be in the end? Wonder whether or not he believes in natural law, that is, evolution, as do all other intelligent beings (even some religious people).