Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter Mallett
Look forward to it. Enjoy your weekend.  |
OK, snow stopped play - e.g. I can't be bothered to de-ice the car just yet!
Since your post is already back several pages and I don't fancy cutting and pasting bit by bit I'll try to add relevant comments but without the text!
As we both say the obvious day to day benefits are things like roaming charges, free travel, investment in infrastructure and so on.
Most of the discussion has been based on the red-tape side but there are many other aspects to the EU, which probably have a wider impact on people's lives than the red-tape which affect a limited range of topics.
Homogenous technical regulations make a lot of sense but how you agree such things isn't obvious given that everyone wants to look after their own interests.
If the EU is reliant on EU produced goods that is presumably to the benefit of European countries' industries which doesn't sound like a bad starting point - many countries tend to buy local, hence France still has a car industry, while the UK's decision to import foreign coal didn't do much good for the home grown industry etc.
DUP reference was to the approach to negotiations, given the only word they seem to utter is NO! If you take an active part in negotiations there is more chance of having an influence on the outcome. Years ago I knew people that were fed up with Mrs T's constantly saying No to everything and then having to agree to whatever the others had decided - and these were people working within her govt.!
Countries financial difficulties are possibly an issue but given they aren't going to move, they wouldn't seem to be a major financial risk for lenders?
Isn't it the case that America was theoretically bankrupt for years (we know that it is currently morally bankrupt)?
As for youth unemployment the EU are well aware of the problem and looking at solutions, but they need long term solutions to an issue that has been building for years (due to increased life expectancy, changes in activities and many other issues).
Quick fix short term solutions aren't a viable answer - the UK keep telling us how many jobs they have created, but it looks like most of those jobs are
of poor quality (insecure, poorly paid) and often the result of turning a full time job into several part time ones - that isn't a long term solution.
One issue with job creation is the value for money aspect, if you spend a million a year and it supports 50 jobs, you want to be sure that those people earn considerably more than 20 grand a year, otherwise it would have been more effective to simply give them the money.
The UK being the 5th largest economy is I suspect one of its problems (e.g. it sounds far more impressive than it is) - that figure is seemingly based on a turnover type figure and given that a huge proportion is based on service industries that means the people who are benefitting from the figures are the Deutsche, Swiss, French and so on companies who's name is on the door of the leading companies.
e.g. what is more beneficial to the local economy, a large foreign company that pays remarkably little tax and takes it's profits back home or a local industry that pays an appropriate amount of tax and employs lots of local people?
I didn't know that the UK election includes who you want to be PM, I thought it was just a case that the party you vote for tell you who they will chose?
Ultimately it shouldn't really matter because they are meant to be part of a democratic process and there is a consensus for decisions rather than some form of dictatorship.
That history of the EU thing is strange, no mention of the European Coal & Steel community etc. but it does explain the name of a few bus/tram stops around Brussels!!
Now to the crux/current issue:
The disgruntled people; what is really strange is why people felt that leaving the EU was the solution to home grown problems.
It's very easy to understand why people are annoyed about the lack of infrastructure (hospitals, transport, education and so on), their financial plight, reliance on cheap immigrant labour and so on.
But the EU wasn't responsible for decades of tax cuts (e.g. reduction in funding for infrastructure), lack of investment, selling off the family silver, growth in reliance on borrowing, austerity measures and reliance on other countries training of staff etc.
There are many different reasons people had for leaving the EU, the problem is the govt. did not tell the public what their reason was - it's actually taken them 2 years to tell anyone what they want - so some people will find it offers what they wanted but many others will find it doesn't have any bearing on it.
If there had been a plan the govt. would have presented the current withdrawal document the day after starting Article 50 at which point they should have had 2 years to tie up the details. Instead they decided to take 2 years to work out what we want and then will need a similar amount of time to sort the details out.
If people are already fed up with how long it's taken so far, how chuffed will they be to find out that they've just about reached the starting point!!
Perhaps Mr Cameron will come back to sort out the mess he created in an attempt to save his bacon (intentional pig pun).
Peter who's now off to play with the snow now (e.g. hopes it's melted).