Brexit: The DT Poll

[adhoc]

Well the fact is standard of living has dropped - and still is dropping - in my country since €. It's very easy to talk how nice having a new museum is when you're full of cash, but we have people here working for 480€ full month at expenses similar to Germany. I'm doing fine, not as well if I was in UK or DE, but I still have an ear for those not as fortunate or capable.

Sure, TVs are cheap due to EU wide open market, but you don't buy a TV every day. On the other hand, EU has forbid us to produce sugar, for example.

Like I said, it's easy to be pro-EU when you're living at the pool of money convergency. Come live to peripheral for a few years we were, by standard of living, better off prior to EU.

[tp4tissue]

Well the fact is standard of living has dropped - and still is dropping - in my country since €. It's very easy to talk how nice having a new museum is when you're full of cash, but we have people here working for 480€ full month at expenses similar to Germany. I'm doing fine, not as well if I was in UK or DE, but I still have an ear for those not as fortunate or capable.

Sure, TVs are cheap due to EU wide open market, but you don't buy a TV every day. On the other hand, EU has forbid us to produce sugar, for example.

Like I said, it's easy to be pro-EU when you're living at the pool of money convergency. Come live to peripheral for a few years we were, by standard of living, better off prior to EU.

EU still has it much better than asia.. the majority of people there are on subsistence wages..

[seebart]

I really wonder how all this will play out in the next 15-20 years...kinda scares me a little. I might have to leave in the long term...Canada, Australia, New Zealand all look great to me.

[tp4tissue]

I really wonder how all this will play out in the next 15-20 years...kinda scares me a little. I might have to leave in the long term...Canada, Australia, New Zealand all look great to me.

USA is the strongest economically, regardless of your field, you will earn more in the USA.. And our cost of living is trivial relative to our middle-class income..

[Muirium]

You're living in the past. That next president of yours is all about Making Murica Great Again! So clearly it's all to utter shit now. Or else you wouldn't be desperate enough to go for such a loon.

[adhoc]

That's terrible and all, but discussing EU and saying how it's great, while you have countries that are consistently losing standard of living so the big bosses at BE, DE, FR and UK can raise their e-peens against RU and US is kinda...well, naive.

The US has discrepancies between states, but not as large as the EU does. Slovenia is not even the worst off, not even by a margin, we're actually in the top of tier 2 countries of EU, nearly tier 1...but take a look at Romania, Croatia, etc. Then compare these to DE.

Mama Merkel said she wants immigrants by the millions, because Europe can afford the charity. My fellow countrymen are picking up the trash after immigrants - the trash immigrants didn't want to eat, because it was too shit for them, just so they have something to eat. EU imposed tens of thousands of immigrants through our country EVERY DAY (that's like 3.75 million immigrants coming through US EVERY DAY!!), which lead to millions of euros of expenses DAILY, all the while they gave us some bread crumbs back for the effort (we spent roughly 800 mio € for them, we got back 25 mio).

And then I have to read how it's OK, because of course you don't see the problems from a high horse in the UK.

[seebart]

I really wonder how all this will play out in the next 15-20 years...kinda scares me a little. I might have to leave in the long term...Canada, Australia, New Zealand all look great to me.

USA is the strongest economically, regardless of your field, you will earn more in the USA.. And our cost of living is trivial relative to our middle-class income..

I have lived there 11 years, after 2001 it's not the same country to me...

[Muirium]

We don't see migrants here much at all. Because of London's efforts to lumber everyone else on earth with them instead of us! Scotland's less offended by them, but when London is a car ride away, we aren't at all appealing to newcomers. Too cold, white, and not nearly as oozing money as the city where so much of the world's wealth is robbed. Fair's fair.

That cold, deadly North Sea makes these things much easier. You Slovenians should build a ditch and consider sharks…

[tp4tissue]

I really wonder how all this will play out in the next 15-20 years...kinda scares me a little. I might have to leave in the long term...Canada, Australia, New Zealand all look great to me.

USA is the strongest economically, regardless of your field, you will earn more in the USA.. And our cost of living is trivial relative to our middle-class income..

I have lived there 11 years, after 2001 it's not the same country to me...

Do you mean it has changed ever since 2001 ?

hahaha.. That's really when the explosion of billionaires happened... and the general population went into Decadent Hedonistic mode.. Like all late stage empires..

So.. essentially, after ww2, there was still unity and convergence of aim in the population.. but later on, as we completed the rebuilding and converted the war time research into consumables, we enter a different era of civilization.


If you enjoy the Unity and Togetherness feel, You might enjoy a developing nation more so than the first-world..

[jacobolus]

I really wonder how all this will play out in the next 15-20 years...kinda scares me a little. I might have to leave in the long term...Canada, Australia, New Zealand all look great to me.

IMO it can go two ways:

(1) The Euro is replaced by national currencies, and weaker economies are given the right to devalue their own currencies.

(2) Germany, etc. will have to suck it up and provide real fiscal support to weaker economies, as happens between U.S. states. Probably will also have to create more serious and democratic governing institutions.

As for places you can go, if you pick Canada, you’re lucky they just ditched Harper. Abbott, Turnbull & co. in Australia are a trainwreck. You can’t make this shit up (context).

[tp4tissue]

I really wonder how all this will play out in the next 15-20 years...kinda scares me a little. I might have to leave in the long term...Canada, Australia, New Zealand all look great to me.

IMO it can go two ways:

(1) The Euro is replaced by national currencies, and weaker economies are given the right to devalue their own currencies.

(2) Germany, etc. will have to suck it up and provide real fiscal support to weaker economies, as happens between U.S. states. Probably will also have to create more serious and democratic governing institutions.

Nonononono....

You need LESS-democratic governing solutions if we want to strengthen the economy..

Democracy is only for the exceedingly rich.. Every one else can not afford it..

All the other nations have be more efficient to compete.

[jacobolus]

TP: WTF are you talking about? The current governing structures in the EU are entirely undemocratic and unaccountable, and also extremely weak and ineffective.

What they’ve got now is like the USA circa 1780.

[seebart]

Do you mean it has changed ever since 2001 ?

If you enjoy the Unity and Togetherness feel, You might enjoy a developing nation more so than the first-world..

No I mean this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Act

And now this:

Spoiler:

flicker.jpg (51.46 KiB) Viewed 8076 times

(2) Germany, etc. will have to suck it up and provide real fiscal support to weaker economies, as happens between U.S. states. Probably will also have to create more serious and democratic governing institutions.

I can tell you that might not be financially doable in the long term.

[Muirium]

So what you're saying, TP, is that shouty circlejerk of a thread between you and Chuck and Berserker is actually blue on blue violence between three of the forum's most right wing lunatics?

Makes sense.

[tp4tissue]

TP: WTF are you talking about? The current governing structures in the EU are entirely undemocratic and unaccountable, and also extremely weak and ineffective.

Hahaha.. Well basically, what's happening in the EU is not due to democratic or undemocratic, they're weak because the Stronger nations in Europe are enslaving the weaker ones..

But what I'm saying is OVERALL.. if we look at command economies which are more efficient under totalitarian governments, they have a higher rate of convergence than any democratic nation due to efficiency boost..

[tp4tissue]

So what you're saying, TP, is that shouty circlejerk of a thread between you and Chuck and Berserker is actually blue on blue violence between three of the forum's most right wing lunatics?

Makes sense.

Woah woah woah.. I'm not right or left wing.. I've believe that different ideologies are appropriate at different times of a nation's development cycle.. That is all..

[adhoc]

We don't see migrants here much at all. Because of London's efforts to lumber everyone else on earth with them instead of us! Scotland's less offended by them, but when London is a car ride away, we aren't at all appealing to newcomers. Too cold, white, and not nearly as oozing money as the city where so much of the world's wealth is robbed. Fair's fair.

That cold, deadly North Sea makes these things much easier. You Slovenians should build a ditch and consider sharks…

Well, no, some of these people legitimately need help and should be helped, nobody deserves to live in fear of having a bomb dropped on his head, you know? But the way EU has confronted this problem is plain stupid. You can't create a hot pocket in such a small country.

Well, that's just one of the problems of EU, but it's more apparent now due to recent unfoldings.

[jacobolus]

I can tell you that might not be financially doable in the long term.

Of course it would be financially doable. What you mean is that it might not be politically palatable. Folks in Germany are happy to walk all over Greece, Italy, Spain, etc., but as soon as they might have to sacrifice something, they’ll nope right out of the deal.

In the US, the federal government provides massive fiscal subsidy to poorer states. This is the only possible way to maintain a monetary union, because otherwise the economic imbalances build up until they rip the union apart.

In the Eurozone the only equalization is massive brain-drain toward central cities, which ultimately does very little to improve the lives of people stuck in the periphery.

All the bankers and central country pundits sit around and whine about how all the Spaniards and Italians are lazy and corrupt and dragging them down. Meanwhile the currency union with its concomitant inability to set monetary policy or even control their own fiscal policy has left all the peripheral countries absolutely wrecked, while Germany & al., despite their idiotic fiscal austerity, are still mostly fine due to massive trade imbalance.

[seebart]

I can tell you that might not be financially doable in the long term.

Of course it would be financially doable. What you mean is that it might not be politically palatable. Folks in Germany are happy to walk all over Greece, Italy, Spain, etc., but as soon as they might have to sacrifice something, they’ll nope right out of the deal.

Very wrong. The german GOVERMENT makes those decisions, not the citizens! I was under the impression you can differentiate. HUGE difference. And I tell you it "might" not be financially possible. You sure you know the situation in detail jacobolus? I have my doubts.

[jacobolus]

I don’t understand what point you’re trying to make. Economically, the Eurozone is certainly capable of providing a decent standard of living to all its citizens. Whether the money actually gets distributed that way, or all goes to a handful of rich bankers is a political question.

[Muirium]

Yup. The EU needs to ultimately become a full nation state with everything that entails, like the US. Or it will remain a loose assembly of mismatched states keen to export all their problems to each other, like the rest of the Americas!

I don't see the gravity pulling us all together nearly as much this year as in the 1990s. We had a purpose at the end of the Cold War: mop up the Soviet mess and welcome that fallen empire's subjects to western democracy. Since then, we've become pettier, nastier and smaller minded. History seems to want us to drift apart, or take a sharp turn. Depends what it throws us.

[tp4tissue]

I don’t understand what point you’re trying to make. Economically, the Eurozone is certainly capable of providing a decent standard of living to all its citizens. Whether the money actually gets distributed that way, or all goes to a handful of rich bankers is a political question.

The EU is not socialist, so the money will always be between a handful of bankers..

But that doesn't necessarily mean bad standards of living for the citizens..

The USA has a great standard of living, and yet our wealth is extremely concentrated..

[jacobolus]

The USA has a shit standard of living by developed country standards.

Wages for the bottom ~70% have stagnated for the past 40 years, debt is skyrocketing and almost nobody has any savings, labor rights are weak and work culture is toxic, a large proportion of the population is un- or under-employed, there’s a massive epidemic of drug overdose and suicide, all our infrastructure is falling apart, we refuse to fund basic services, our healthcare system is the most expensive and least effective in the developed world, etc.

[Muirium]

Yup. Being poor and ill in America is Kafkaesque. Yet he was writing about totalitarian police megastates. Strange that…

[seebart]

I don’t understand what point you’re trying to make. Economically, the Eurozone is certainly capable of providing a decent standard of living to all its citizens. Whether the money actually gets distributed that way, or all goes to a handful of rich bankers is a political question.

The European "idea" is not working the way it was envisioned jacobolus! This is not about bankers, they got their billions somewhere else anyway [Panama]. It's not a socialist programm. On the other hand Greece is getting fucked either way by "reforms" that will not work IMO. I'm pretty sure the USA could provide a decent standard of living to all of latin and south America on it's own. But there's no programm in place for that, I wonder what Mr.Trump would say to that. Just for fun.

[Muirium]

If they can't vote for him, Trump's not interested. Hell, he's not interested in the majority of people who could! Which is fine and all, except in politics you're expected to at least pretend you do. His open hostility to non-whites and women is still the main thing between him and the White House. Damn it if the media isn't cheering him on for a story. Four more years of this! Makes their lives so easy. Just "report" what he says on Twitter. Idiots.

[tp4tissue]

The USA has a shit standard of living by developed country standards.

Wages for the bottom ~70% have stagnated for the past 40 years, debt is skyrocketing and almost nobody has any savings, labor rights are weak and work culture is toxic, a large proportion of the population is un- or under-employed, there’s a massive epidemic of drug overdose and suicide, all our infrastructure is falling apart, we refuse to fund basic services, our healthcare system is the most expensive and least effective in the developed world, etc.

Yet our homeless are the envy of the world..

The things you say are not untrue, but they are problems which are fixable given a large failure/ shock incentive.

No one will fix a bridge until thousands are killed when it collapses, that's just how humans work in general..

Until a dam breaks and an entire city is underwater, they won't fix that either..


I didn't go see the dentist until the pain was so much that I was almost passing out..


You're looking at human nature at work..

It's a process, nothing at the Society scale functions like our day to day idealisms, one click shopping, 1 day delivery etc..

hahahaha

My point is simply, the USA has the resources and it COULD fix those problems, once lots of people die.. and it almost has to happen.. Sadly I agree..

[jacobolus]

As far as I can tell, the original vision for the “European idea” was to ultimately end up with some kind of integrated fiscal union with a real federal government. Instead, they stopped halfway: monetary union with no fiscal union and no political authority and not too much political legitimacy or accountability. As a result, any economic imbalances between states are basically impossible to rectify within the existing structure, and the whole thing gets placed under enormous stress whenever there is any kind of economic shock. In my opinion, the only two ways out are to admit that the current structure is broken and either (a) dissolve it, or (b) dramatically reform it. (b) is looking less and less likely all the time. My guess is that it all falls apart sometime in the next 20 years.

I'm pretty sure the USA could provide a decent standard of living to all of latin and south America on it's own. But there's no programm in place for that

I agree, there should be much more effort by the US to grow economies in Mexico and Central America, instead of mainly providing destabilization, weapons, and a drug market.

We don’t have a currency union with these countries though, so they have sovereign control over their local monetary (and fiscal) policy.

[tp4tissue]

As far as I can tell, the original vision for the “European idea” was to ultimately end up with some kind of integrated fiscal union with a real federal government. Instead, they stopped halfway: monetary union with no fiscal union and no political authority and not too much political legitimacy or accountability. As a result, any economic imbalances between states are basically impossible to rectify within the existing structure, and the whole thing gets placed under enormous stress whenever there is any kind of economic shock. In my opinion, the only two ways out are to admit that the current structure is broken and either (a) dissolve it, or (b) dramatically reform it. (b) is looking less and less likely all the time. My guess is that it all falls apart sometime in the next 20 years.

But you've only listed solutions that works for ANY problem.. and those solutions are always in progress, but again if we take scale into account, you may not see it in one lifetime..

That's the difference between reality and critics of reality.. the Critics want something to happen NOW, and they gloss over the fact that even if we did it all as planned it would take a lifetime..

[jacobolus]

TP: I have no idea what you’re trying to say.