Eurozone will collapse...

[TheDaddy]

Originally Posted by 27monksbury

When you think of all the great intellects that there are in the world, why can't they reset the world economy? These so called experts must be payed huge bonuses by the banks because only they have the expertise to run such a complicated system, and if we didn't pay them they would leave. What to destroy another bank? After the second world war, the Marshal plan was formulated. Germany was smashed to pieces, England had fought 5 ruinous years of war and was skint. Europe was a basket case. However, in charge were people of stature, the Americans stood by us. Now its the turn of the Germans, America, China, and the rest of the world to chip in. Fat chance! Money is only an idea, surely the same rate of interest, say 2 percent could be charged,payed back over 100 years Everyone in the world guarantee payment. Anyway if we go down, we all go down this should put the wind up in Frankfort, London, and Washington.

Because they're not really experts, they're very good at informing us of what happened and how it happened but not so good at telling us what's going to happen next, experts my backside, it was experts that got us in this mess in the first place, I'd trust them to sort it out about as much as I'd trust a weatherman to tell me what the weather will be like over the Olympics.

[Osem]

No it hasn't all just gone away...

European stock markets have fallen amid concerns about Spain and as trade unions hold a general strike in Greece.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19726981

[ntluser]

Sadly, it is not going to go away.

Despite all the talk of cuts in places like Greece, the one thing I haven't heard is leaders of countries cutting their own salaries,expenses, pensions etc. and until they feel the pain things are not likely to change.

Bolstering up the Euro artificially is just dragging the rest of the Eurozone down. It is, as has been stated, generating resentment between those who are paying for the support and those receiving it. While the sound German economy has people busy beavering away, the Greeks want to strike.

It would be far better if the Greeks became part of the solution rather than part of the problem, because there will come a point where those countries with the sounder economies will cry enough and we will be in a situation where Eurozone members revert back to their original currencies and support their currency at a level they can afford. They will then be left to manage their own affairs without financial support from other Eurozone members.

For me that is the best solution because it allows all Eurozone members to determine their own futures and puts the responsibility for sorting out the economic ills onto the people causing it.

Better still, each country can formulate its own plans tailored to the conditions in their own economy.It will give EU leaders a real incentive to address the issues with true leadership from the top.

[Osem]

Tought times ahead for France.

there is to be a new 75% tax rate for people earning more than 1m euros (£800,000; $1.3m) a year.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19754016

Wonder how many of these people will take their business and taxes elsewhere?

Of course it's popular to tax the rich and hit companies with additional financial burdens but this has an adverse effect on competitiveness:

But France has not had a budget surplus since 1973. The social burden has been passed to the employer in the form of higher and higher taxes.

Since France joined the euro, the unit cost of labour has risen by 28% - in Germany by just 8%.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19740957

---------- Post added at 13:05 ---------- Previous post was at 13:03 ----------

Originally Posted by ntluser

Sadly, it is not going to go away.

Despite all the talk of cuts in places like Greece, the one thing I haven't heard is leaders of countries cutting their own salaries,expenses, pensions etc. and until they feel the pain things are not likely to change.

Bolstering up the Euro artificially is just dragging the rest of the Eurozone down. It is, as has been stated, generating resentment between those who are paying for the support and those receiving it. While the sound German economy has people busy beavering away, the Greeks want to strike.

It would be far better if the Greeks became part of the solution rather than part of the problem, because there will come a point where those countries with the sounder economies will cry enough and we will be in a situation where Eurozone members revert back to their original currencies and support their currency at a level they can afford. They will then be left to manage their own affairs without financial support from other Eurozone members.

For me that is the best solution because it allows all Eurozone members to determine their own futures and puts the responsibility for sorting out the economic ills onto the people causing it.

Better still, each country can formulate its own plans tailored to the conditions in their own economy.It will give EU leaders a real incentive to address the issues with true leadership from the top.

Yes, makes you wonder who thought the Eurozone was a good idea in the first place doesn't it.

Yea, and as long as France remains in the Euro it will not be able to do the one thing a nation state should be able to do in order to redress the imbalance in unit labour costs with Germany, namely to allow the Franc to slide against the DM in order to make its exports competitive again.

In the meantime, I predict rather more French families will up sticks and join the 400,000 already living in the UK, where tax rates for the most able wealth creators are competitive (currently 50pc, dropping to 45pc next April). Thankfully the economically illiterate fools who moan how it's 'unfair' that our top rate of income tax is dropping are not running the country, and people who see the bigger picture are.

[Sirius]

Well i hope this is the start of something bigger.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-19944072

The government plans to exercise its right to opt out of 130 EU measures on law and order, Home Secretary Theresa May is set to tell MPs later.

She is expected to say control will return to the UK in two years under an opt-out agreed by the last government during Lisbon Treaty negotiations.

Prime Minister David Cameron said last week that a review of the balance of powers between the UK and the EU would be likely to lead to a referendum on the UK's relationship with the union after the next election

[Osem]

With a bit of Luck we can get out just in time for Salmond's Tartan Twits to join up.

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by Osem

With a bit of Luck we can get out just in time for Salmond's Tartan Twits to join up.

[Osem]

The Portuguese government has revealed details of its draft budget for 2013, one of the harshest in the country's recent history...

... Finance Minister Vitor Gaspar confirmed the average income tax rise would increase from 9.8% in 2012 to 13.2% next year. Portugal was granted a 78bn-euro ($100bn; £63bn) bailout last year...

... As in Spain and Greece, Portugal has seen huge street protests against the austerity cuts that are needed to meet the demands of the bailout...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19953167

While all the Eurocrats are celebrating their Nobel peace Prize, I wonder if anyone in EuroLaLaLand has considered what would happen to all the 'peace' if the German economy were to stall or its people were to force a change of policy towards the likes of Portugal?

[tweetiepooh]

Oh the joy of the Euro.

Way back, when Greece got into trouble they devalued the drachma and all the "rich" folk flooded in spending money on cheap holidays. As things got better the currency strengthened and the Greeks could (should) invest and improve their own lot.

Now there is just to much difference and people don't flock in because the Euro keeps prices relatively high. There is a completely different mind set between parts of the Euro zone to make it work as the Eurocrats intend.

The Euro should have been a mechanism to allow companies (and governments) to trade across borders in a more orderly fashion, maybe even "tax free". Then taxes could be collected by national governments at point of final sale at whatever rate they needed. Less bureaucracy collecting tax across national boundaries

[Osem]

More 'peace' in Europe for the Eurocrats to congratulate themselves on...

A general strike is under way in Greece in protest against the next round of spending cuts, required in return for another bailout instalment.

It is the country's 20th national stoppage since the debt crisis erupted two years ago and comes as EU leaders meet in Brussels.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19986804

Anger has led to a loss of faith in the state, he says, with Greeks increasingly turning to political extremes such as the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party.

No need to worry about that though because more integration is what's required...

It seems for the moment that the Eurozone won't collapse which is good, hopefully the economies will start to grow and help move beyond the last couple of years. It does seem like Greece might just be kicked out if they can't or won't take bailout money anymore.

Your ability to mix irony with sarcasm is unparalled Osem. I take my hat off to you (baseball cap)

[Osem]

Originally Posted by jempalmer

Your ability to mix irony with sarcasm is unparalled Osem. I take my hat off to you (baseball cap)

Just make sure you don't put it back on backwards.

I might be daft, however even I can work out which way up it's supposed to go