02-04-2011, 02:50 PM | #161 |
the Shrike
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(serious giggle)
LOL
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02-04-2011, 09:22 PM | #162 |
Elf Lord
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Lol!
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02-11-2011, 02:52 AM | #163 | ||
Elf Lord
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Quote:
From an anonymous diplomat in the Telegraph article: Quote:
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02-11-2011, 03:11 AM | #164 |
Elf Lord
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On a vaguely related note, I was teaching an elementary-school age class from an American-published ESL text-book. ESL is "English as a Second Language" so this was a book aimed at immigrant children in the US.
The book had a lesson on Holidays/Festivals; they taught about Mother's Day, Father's Day, Thanksgiving, Halloween, Independence Day and Valentine's- but no Christmas. It seemed strange to my ten-year-olds, since even in this decidedly non-Christian tropical country we're everywhere assaulted with Santa Claus, Christmas trees and snowmen, usually culminating in a party and a small gift. One kid asked "I know they don't have (Chinese) New Year, but don't they even get Christmas in America?"
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Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep. Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come when you do call for them? "I like pigs. Dogs look up to us, cats look down on us, but pigs treat us as equals."- Winston Churchill |
02-11-2011, 03:44 AM | #165 | ||
Elf Lord
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Quote:
Quote:
These days I'm feeling somewhat inkish about our Muslim brethren myself.
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Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep. Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come when you do call for them? "I like pigs. Dogs look up to us, cats look down on us, but pigs treat us as equals."- Winston Churchill |
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11-01-2011, 10:04 PM | #166 |
High King at Annuminas Administrator
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As many of you would know, the economy in Europe is struggling right now (along with the rest of us), but the EU has some peculiar situations stemming from its nature as a union of sovereign states. And now some very interesting things are developing, with the economy of Greece in particularly bad shape, an EU plan to assist in place, requiring 'austerity measures' for Greece, the apparent rejection of these austerity measures by the Greek populace at large, and now, today - the announcement by the Greek Prime Minister that he will seek a referendum on the implementation of this plan, with its austerity measures.
What do you folks think of this? Do you think the long-term outlook of the EU as an entity is precarious, or do you think it will last a long time? Do you think Greece might get kicked out of the EU if they continue to struggle economically and do not accept the conditions for assistance required by the other EU members? What do you see the future of the EU to be?
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11-02-2011, 05:11 AM | #167 | |
Elf Lord
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Best 'short' summary I found on the whole thing.
Quote:
For the long term, there's basically two options. Either the southern tier drops out and the Euro essentially becomes a Deutsch-mark zone-plus-France, or Europe has to do what the U.S. did at their Constitutional Convention: decide to become the United States of Europe. After all, nobody panics when there's a massive deficit in Alabama, right? However, the citizens of Europe have been pulled into this by their elites, and are understandably disgruntled about what is happening, and so there is no way they are going to accept the second solution at the moment.
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Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep. Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come when you do call for them? "I like pigs. Dogs look up to us, cats look down on us, but pigs treat us as equals."- Winston Churchill |
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11-02-2011, 06:58 AM | #168 |
Elf Lord
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That's a great summary, GM.
I am a Europhile, generally speaking, but I think this was always going to happen at some stage and I am glad that the UK did not join the Euro. It can be misleading to draw parallels with the US states. The structural differences between European countries are huge. However, I think that greater integration will be the result with non-Euro countries being in the EU "slow lane". |
11-02-2011, 10:52 AM | #169 |
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Italy is actually the 2nd largest economy in the EU. I was surprised.
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11-03-2011, 06:54 AM | #170 |
Elf Lord
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All of which opens up the old fracture lines (and crude generalisations) about the North/South divide in the EU, which can be paraphrased as "hard-working, sober-minded Saxons funding feckless and inefficient Mediterraneans." Unfair I know but I think that summarises many people's views.
Whether its propping up Greece directly or propping up the banks that kept lending and lending, this is going a suck gazillions out of a number of G20 economies, which will have a knock-on effect among all trading nations. Recession Part 2, anyone? On the plus side, I hear Estonia is doing roaringly well out of both the Euro and the EU.
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11-03-2011, 10:07 AM | #171 |
Elf Lord
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Depends how you define "roaringly"; I saw this on another forum:
Can't vouch for the accuracy of those stats, and clearly it should be "median" instead of "medium", but anyway, the point is made. Things are changing by the hour on this one. Now the Greek PM is going to resign, so there may not be a referendum at all. Check back in half an hour to see if they have flogged the Parthenon to a timeshare developer. On the north-south thing, it's important to characterise this in terms of "fully industrialised" and "until quite recently, agricultural subsistence economies". Italy exemplifies it: powerhouse northern industrial half, backwards southern agricultural half. But this has been in the post for years. We kept writing "not known at this address" and bunging it back in the pillar box. For me, the key question is, when are people going to realise that the fault is with the system, and the utterly clueless economists and financiers that administer it, not with lazy Greeks or venal speculators? |
11-03-2011, 01:02 PM | #172 |
Elf Lord
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I based it on a Radio 4 item I heard. A quick check - yes the Estonian economy took a pounding in 2009, but that was after almost a decade of growth that sometimes topped 10% pa - and the 2011 estimate is a very healthy 6.5%. Plus national debt is about 7% of GDP compared to Greece's 120%.
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11-03-2011, 05:01 PM | #173 |
Elf Lord
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Well, everyone in the Tea Party and other conservative groups are complaining about the deficits, so I'm not sure the Alabama reference is germane.
Did you know that 49% of Americans pay no income taxes? They are the Greece of the American economy and they want bailouts in the form of social subsidies. Now perhaps conservatives in America will be better understood by liberal Europeans who want it all but just not to have to pay for it (Germany versus Greece, anyone?).
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11-03-2011, 05:43 PM | #174 |
Elf Lord
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So conservatives are in favour of more people paying their taxes? I must have missed that memo.
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11-04-2011, 01:34 PM | #175 |
Quasi Evil
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No, conservatives in america are in favor of the rich getting more tax breaks (did you know inked that quite a few of the richest companies in america pay no taxes either?) and the poor and shrinking middle class being forced to take on a flat tax so that what little spare income they have for buying things like gas and groceries is siphoned off in tax hits at the expenditure level because they are lazy freeloaders and all. They have even somehow managed to brain wash poor and middle class conservatives that this is a better idea then the rich paying their fair share. And when Warren Buffet complains about paying less taxes then his secretary they tell him to shut his commie mouth.
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11-04-2011, 04:11 PM | #176 |
Elf Lord
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Then again, maybe not.
Donate your Euros to Greece.
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Inked "Aslan is not a tame lion." CSL/LWW "The new school [acts] as if it required...courage to say a blasphemy. There is only one thing that requires real courage to say, and that is a truism." GK Chesterton "And there is always the danger of allowing people to suppose that our modern times are so wholly unlike any other times that the fundamental facts about man's nature have wholly changed with changing circumstances." Dorothy L. Sayers, 1 Sept. 1941 |
11-04-2011, 06:09 PM | #177 |
Elf Lord
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Something which the remaining 51% aspire to
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11-05-2011, 04:13 AM | #178 |
Elf Lord
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I think there is an element of congruence between right and left on this. Here in the UK the "left" (well - heh - the Labour party, not exactly lefties, but compared to your lot they are raging communists) is opposing an IMF bail-out fund to supplant the European Central Bank. In this respect they are in agreement with the foaming-mouthed right-wing Eurosceptics.
There is a simple answer to all of the financial problems facing the world: get everyone to pay their ****ing taxes. In Greece there is tax evasion on a massive scale. In the UK, US and other major countries, there is an enormous industry based around tax avoidance, resulting in the ridiculous situation of these huge corporations and massively rich individuals paying hardly any tax. The fact that one is illegal and one is not doesn't affect the morality. It is immoral to avoid taxes. If you avoid taxes, you are a parasite. |
11-05-2011, 02:01 PM | #179 |
The Chocoholic Sea Elf Administrator
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But what about other taxes, surely income tax isn't the only tax to be paid in America? I can't tell from here but surely it isn't the only one? No VAT, property tax, community tax, recycling tax, registration duties, fuel tax and a boatload of others that I don't know the English term for?
- Eärniel, who lives in a country that has one of the highest tax pressures in the EU and who genuinely would like to know whether she should consider migrating. Certainly not to Greece, although that a meditteranean climate, a fourteenth month in wages, hardly any amenities to pay for, retirement before 60 sounds and letting somebody else sort out my financial problems sound pretty awesome...
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11-07-2011, 01:45 AM | #180 |
the Shrike
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No, it's not the only one. They also pay things like payroll tax. It's very disingenuous to imply that they are tax dodgers. It's simply not true.
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