The peasants are revolting across Europe. They want bankers’ blood and mean to get it. Until now, public response to the credit crunch has been one of general bafflement and wrist-slapping. The banks persuaded the world it was all an act of fate. As it was, they were too big to fail and their leaders too saintly to atone for it. For four years, British banks were showered with nearly half a trillion pounds of public and printed money. They duly recovered and stayed rich, while everyone else went poor.
I’m somewhat surprised little noise has been made about the fantastic precedent set by the new provisos in the Capital Requirements Directive. Specifically, the agreement that bankers’ bonuses will now be capped at the same level as their salaries.
Can’t wait to see what The Economist offers as a withered critique of meddling with incentive capitalism. Or if America does anything to follow suit, considering the attempts at taxing those Wall Street bonuses in 2009 went nowhere.
diarrheaworldstarhiphop:
axelssonkatt replied to your photo:EU should ‘undermine national homogeneity’ says UN…
Let’s not also forget that the US has a lot of tension within itself already, let alone a super nation made up of very distinct countries that have had very long histories as nationalistic entities only now being brought together through globalization.
Exactly. IDK what the EU hopes to achieve by emulating countries with notorious ethnic strife. The United States is a fucking mess partly because you have all these different cultures that are wary and prejudiced against one another. Not to mention that dandy history of minority treatment from the largest group that perpetuates hatred and conflict even today.
And then look at Canada, we aren’t exactly built as a multicultural love boat either, only a couple decades ago there were French Canadian terrorists blowing up cars of political figures and Trudeau had to call in the fucking military to raid Montreal during the October Crisis. Canada’s history has been defined by balancing its anglo-french relations.
And then there’s the middle east and the Arab Spring. That partly has to do with being fallout from the Ottoman Empire, which attempted to be a homogenous middleeastern state as well. Fast forward a century after its collapse and you have former provinces that are being led by dictators who favour their minority ethnic group over all others. IE: Syria’s ruling Alawite class and all those Shia groups and all that.
The EU is yet another top to bottom power grab. If they are seriously encouraging ethnic homogeneity in order to compete with other large economies, it is no different from past European empires and imperial masterplans. I guess it’s in Europe’s blood to be aspiring power mongers. lmfao
The EU should’ve drawn the line at economic union but whatever. History repeats, greed, etc etc.
Except that economic union necessitates closer political union. You cannot have a sound currency without a sound economic policy and dare I say it, a more centralized form of planning? The Stability and Growth Pact certainly hasn’t been doing the trick.
The EU has been at the fore-front of pushing for greater social inclusion for all sorts of minorities. National governments (e.g. France and Italy) have pushed back on these efforts. In other countries, like Spain, they’ve done surprisingly well. There is a wealth of research from the Fundamental Rights Agency to suggest Spain’s outreach programs to the Roma population within its borders are a good example.
And ethnic homogeneity really can’t endure in light of the Schengen borders. Eventually, you will have more mixed national populations. That’s just the outcome of the Four Freedoms. There’s no sinister plot to smash national culture and it’s bewildering to read an interpretation of this that could have come off a UKIP leaflet.
axelssonkatt:
diarrefpuckhookyplay-em-offs:
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Conservative peer and former deputy prime minister Lord Heseltine has told the BBC that he thinks the UK will join the euro “if it survives”.
The pro-European politician, recently appointed as a government adviser, told the Daily Politics Britain had “failed” to resist European integration.
Lord Heseltine said European countries would “cling on” to the euro.
The eurozone faced a “crisis” but he said it was a “very Eurosceptic view” to see the euro as a “failed project”.
Asked if he thought the UK would adopt the single currency, he said: “If it survives, and my guess is it will survive, my guess is in the future - it won’t be this week or next week or next year - we will do so, because the whole process of Europeanisation we have resisted and we have failed at every turn.
“If you look at the history of it, we were asked to lead it and we refused.”
The peer served as a cabinet minister in the 1980s before resigning and later challenging Margaret Thatcher for the Conservative leadership - a challenge that triggered the end of her premiership in 1990.
Lord Heseltine, who was also deputy prime minister during the latter part of John Major’s time in Downing Street, said: “Every time we’ve had these arguments… it’s always turned out to be unworkable from our point of view.”
David Cameron said last December there was “absolutely no prospect of joining the euro” while he was prime minister.
Ok
ok
ok
get this
ok
hear me out, no
ok, look
what if
what if we designed an oil supertanker with not several, but only one compartment?
so, so it’d be quicker to drain.
“Wouldn’t it be unstable in stormy weather, with all that oil sloshing around?”
HEY, SHUT UP.
Jesus christ. Well, I’m glad Sweden is really euro-skeptic, because they’re gonna stick to their krona.
This is absolutely nothing new, and British reluctance to join the Eurozone is rooted in either the strength of sterling or the refusal to allow monetary union to smooth the way for political union.
Heseltine’s analysis here is pretty traditional. The European Coal and Steel Community made several gestures way back in the 1950s trying to woo the UK into joining. They were, like everyone else, focusing on the domestic agenda and additionally, the problems of the Commonwealth and Empire transitions, so the opportunity to help direct the future of the European project was sadly over-looked.
By the 1960s and 1970s, when the European Economic Community is actually making a good bit of difference and the Common Market is looking mighty attractive to a stagflation-riddled UK economy, attempts to join are not so politely rebuffed by Charles De Gaulle, which forever taints future relations with EEC as you get the usual Tory malarkey about French (now French, German or Belgian) eurocrats.
In the 1980s, the issue of currency and the European Exchange Rate Mechanism is one of the final nails in the coffin for Margaret Thatcher’s career. From 1989 to 1990 it’s one of the most bitter debates between Euroskeptics and EC supporters, and the resignation of Geoffrey Howe is a loud accusation that Tories have utterly fucked-up relations with Europe.
Howe was actually Heseltine’s predecessor as deputy prime minister.
Up to the present day, the UK has kept the euro at arm’s length, a bit like the Danes. I would be very surprised to see the combination of factors that would actually lead to the pound sterling being phased-out, considering the symbolism attached and the lingering idea that while the pound is higher than the Euro, they should not deign to lower themselves and join.
Germany had no problem doing this with the mark, but the UK barely sees itself as part of Europe some days. I question their commitment to a European vision.
