Europe

[Beskar]

You don't need land, you need resources, Britain's industry is effectively a service economy, it has no real economy, it is selling cheap products like mobile phones which are programmed to stop working after a period of time.

The alternative for Britain is to become like a Switzerland-style country and completely withdraw from many foreign affairs.

If Britain wants to remain as a real major power, it would be best occur in a union bloc with either America or Europe and union blocs work best when working together for the most part, thus Britain losing its sovereignty would be the price to pay for greater rewards. However, in either an American bloc or a European, it would still have a voice in the policies and politics, together with others.

[Furunculus]

I think he was saying you shared the same mythical views about Britain that the BNP try to generate.

Britain pretty much has two choices. Stick with Europe or become a State of America. Being honest, I prefer the first option.

nothing has been generated, it exists, and it exists for every nation not just this 'mythical' britain.

why does Britain only have two choices, at what point did this become a necessity for Britain to have to join one or the other?

[Furunculus]

Sorry, but it doesn't. People aren't even considering the possibility of trying to fix their own problems and become powerful for themselves again. You don't need a lot of land to be powerful, even if it helps. But you can stay powerful and free. You do not have to join America or Europe.

That being said, if push came to shove, I'd take America. If Europe ever unifies into a single country, that is where I'm going.

what he said.

[Furunculus]

You don't need land, you need resources, Britain's industry is effectively a service economy, it has no real economy, it is selling cheap products like mobile phones which are programmed to stop working after a period of time.

The alternative for Britain is to become like a Switzerland-style country and completely withdraw from many foreign affairs.

If Britain wants to remain as a real major power, it would be best occur in a union bloc with either America or Europe and union blocs work best when working together for the most part, thus Britain losing its sovereignty would be the price to pay for greater rewards. However, in either an American bloc or a European, it would still have a voice in the policies and politics, together with others.

he didn't say you need land, and what is wrong with a service economy?

why is the Britains only alternative to become fortress Switzerland? this is the whole lets-huddle-together-out-of-fear-of-the-big-bad-world argument again, i simply don't have that fear.

ah, there is a real argument; how much do you gain versus how much do you lose.......... having seen how ineffective europe is i have come to the conclusion they we are better off out of any federal union........... which in no way indicates that i do not want an EFTA style agreement.

[Louis VI the Fat]

The bit of Malawi where i lived was specifically designed to replicate a 1920's public school, which was more than a little odd to the hippy generation of teachers that worked there in the 80's. However, it was far from being a piece of little-england-in-spain expat mentality, rather it was a place of intense learning that turned kids who'd never seen a toilet into the future generation of of educated and professional administrators. When we arrived the school was taught by a faculty that 95% white english, today it is 95% black Malawian. That is REAL development success created by my father of which he is rightly proud. A bit OT i know, but since you brought it up my african past i thought i should enlighten you.

The British presence in Africa has had many benefits. A blessing as often as a curse.


Here's hoping the British Conservatives will be as succesful in educating and civilizing the Polish and Latvian natives! (And please not the other way round...)

[Beskar]

and what is wrong with a service economy?

The fact you will feel the worse economic troubles if you only rely on it and during emergencies, you get sunk.

[gaelic cowboy]

The British presence in Africa has had many benefits. A blessing as often as a curse.


Here's hoping the British Conservatives will be as succesful in educating and civilizing the Polish and Latvian natives! (And please not the other way round...)

I am so glad you came here to civilise me NOT

Hm.. this is hard to reply, because it is a vast majority of things, yet, there is basically nothing good with a service economy, thus is it easier to ask "What is right with a service economy".

Whats wrong with a service economy absolutely nothing my boy whats wrong with a manufacturing economy same answer this theory that certain economies are somehow better or holier or differant is silly.

Far as I can tell goods or time are sold and someone else pays to avail of it its not a service economy its just the economy.

Your statement the their is nothing good with a service economy smacks of the fad in thinking that has sprung up now when Britain and the US is down the ladder a bit.

You cant export you way to wealth you can try but all that happens is your economy becomes dependant on someone else's economy you effectively become a parasite.

Parasite's cannot live without a host for long if you wish to grow your economy then you must spend money on goods and services which are 7 times out of ten going to be goods in your own economy.

While export economis like Germany are well able to contine good growth they do not try to really grow because no one spends and no one can easily set up a small business. This situation is perfectly fine if your people are fine with a certain standard of living but the excess money goes somewhere it doesnt stay in the bundesbank thats the nature of the system.

.

[gaelic cowboy]

The fact you will feel the worse economic troubles if you only rely on it and during emergencies, you get sunk.

The same could be said of depending on service led economies to buy your goods there recessions put manufacturers out of business

[Beskar]

Service economies are parasite economies. They cannot survive without the resources from other nations. All they do is import stuff from aboard, sell it to the consumer and their jobs are selling that produce. There is no manufacture, those you can bring money in from selling to others, there is no agriculture, so again, you cannot sell to others. It is a self-imploding economy, recycling money in the system.

Germany for example, has its own economy made up of manufacture, agriculture and service, thus, they are in a far superior situation.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Germany for example, has its own economy made up of manufacture, agriculture and service, thus, they are in a far superior situation.

So Germany can stand alone and doesn't need the European Union. Excellent, and goodbye.

[Beskar]

Nationalism sucks.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Nationalism sucks.

Then supranationalism would, by definition, suck even more.

[Furunculus]

Service economies are parasite economies. They cannot survive without the resources from other nations. All they do is import stuff from aboard, sell it to the consumer and their jobs are selling that produce. There is no manufacture, those you can bring money in from selling to others, there is no agriculture, so again, you cannot sell to others. It is a self-imploding economy, recycling money in the system.

Germany for example, has its own economy made up of manufacture, agriculture and service, thus, they are in a far superior situation.

we could not operate a manufacturing economy that would sustain our current standard of living, one works to ones competitive advantage, not the other way around.

germany also got hammered when its exports suddenly weren't wanted any more, try reading der spiegel sometime, they have been howling about it for 9 months now.

[gaelic cowboy]

When I was in secondary school we learned a simple idea on the economy in our social geography class it was all about how the economy was divided into three sections these are

1 Primary Industry- Mining, Farming, Fishing, Forestry effectively anything to do with natural resources like coal or beef etc

2 Secondary Industry- Manufacturing of these natural resources in to products like chairs or petrol or clothes.

3 Tertiary Industry- Tourism, Service's like cleaning Shops that sell the goods from the primary and secondary area.

No economy not even the mighty US of A cannot specialise in only one of these areas a balance is required.

A modern balanced economy contains elements of all three however that does not mean the economy is one third primary one third secondary and one third tertiary.

At the primary stage the resources are unrefined so relatively cheap at the secondary they are refined into useful products so value is added and then they are used during the tertiary stage.
For example beef from a farm processed at the factory and eaten at the roadside cafe in a steak and chips feed.

This adding of value means that the more stage's you add the more value you gain which of course means that the third stage in any country is a bigger chunck of a nations economy.

People seem to be forgetting that all exports from a country are really to pay for a countries imports.
In the long having no imports will be just as bad as only exporting.

[gaelic cowboy]

Germany for example, has its own economy made up of manufacture, agriculture and service, thus, they are in a far superior situation.

It has all three elements yes but its service section is woefully underdeveloped.

This has a knock on into the real economy of the world and germany.

To make money someone else must buy the products.

German Banks have billions sitting around that need a use enter the Anglo-Saxon economies who invested it in various stuff.

This relationship while everything is growing is great for all concerned but has spectaculary busted now.

However now that no one is borrowing german money I would hazard a guess that german banks while not exposed to property have seen profits dive massively.

The reality is the world is now our economy not our tiny flyspeck self contained sections of it interdependence has benefits and drawbacks but its here and we have to like it or lump.

[Beskar]

Then supranationalism would, by definition, suck even more.

Actually, what "sucks" in the example is how people refuse change based on things which logically aren't sensible. As the world gets smaller, aspects need to get bigger for stability. However, if they get too big, it falls apart. (cue: empires)

Obviously, as it gets bigger, it needs to be on the right principles and concepts and system.

There will be a time when a global union arrives, however, that is not yet. Only time this will be forced to occur if we were suddenly attacked by an off-world threat.

You are correct that "supranationalism" by definition would also suck, if people are just hung up on something infeasible.

[Beskar]

When I was in secondary school we learned a simple idea on the economy in our social geography class it was all about how the economy was divided into three sections these are

1 Primary Industry- Mining, Farming, Fishing, Forestry effectively anything to do with natural resources like coal or beef etc

2 Secondary Industry- Manufacturing of these natural resources in to products like chairs or petrol or clothes.

3 Tertiary Industry- Tourism, Service's like cleaning Shops that sell the goods from the primary and secondary area.

No economy not even the mighty US of A cannot specialise in only one of these areas a balance is required.

A modern balanced economy contains elements of all three however that does not mean the economy is one third primary one third secondary and one third tertiary.

At the primary stage the resources are unrefined so relatively cheap at the secondary they are refined into useful products so value is added and then they are used during the tertiary stage.
For example beef from a farm processed at the factory and eaten at the roadside cafe in a steak and chips feed.

This adding of value means that the more stage's you add the more value you gain which of course means that the third stage in any country is a bigger chunck of a nations economy.

People seem to be forgetting that all exports from a country are really to pay for a countries imports.
In the long having no imports will be just as bad as only exporting.

Indeed, however, when all your economy is just importing...

What I was advocating was a balanced economy.

[Furunculus]

we surprisingly have a similar amount of manufacturing (~17% iirc) to france as a component of the economy.

[Beskar]

I can't really think of any real manufacture out of BAE Systems, so it is surprising. (other than cars/biscuits/chocolate/usual stuff)

edit: Haha, I checked on wikipedia and it said that it was dominated by BAE and cars.

[Furunculus]

Is this where the whole show collapses?

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/da...al-conference/

The European Conservatives and Reformists have altered the dynamic of the European Parliament. For the first time, there is a sizeable Group, made up largely of governing parties, that opposes deeper integration. All of a sudden, federalists find themselves dealing with an Opposition.

Last night, José Manuel Durão Barroso, the Commission President, came to ask for our support in his job reapplication, making a point of meeting the ECR before anyone else. British MEPs were able to cross-examine him at length and in detail, in a way we could never have done within the EPP (we pressed him, in particular, about this wretched proposal).

Today, we are in Prague with our Czech allies, the ODS. I spent a few moments away from the meeting to visit the Old Jewish Cemetery, which houses the remains of Judah Loew ben Bezalel, the Maharal of Prague. Rabbi Loew is credited with having built a golem: a clay mannikin that he magically brought to life. Golems, in many of the legends, begin as servants, but end up dominating or crushing their creators. I think the storytellers were trying to tell us something about how bureaucracies behave.

Our guest speaker was Mark Francois, the brilliant shadow Europe minister. Mark is the Sam Gamgee of politics: people sometimes underestimate him, but he has a quiet toughness that borders on heroism, as he displayed when setting up the ECR. He is now battling just as stoutly to ensure that we get a referendum on the European Constitution Lisbon Treaty. I know that a lot of people who comment on this blog are sceptical about the prospect of getting a vote on the treaty under the Tories. Then again, they tended to be the same people who were sceptical about the establishment of the ECR.

I am increasingly confident that Britain will get its referendum. I’m not in a position to explain why at this stage, but our hand is stronger than is generally supposed. I know this won’t do for some of my readers, but I’m afraid that, for now, you’ll just have to take my word for it.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Barroso, the Commission President, came to ask for our support in his job reapplication, making a point of meeting the ECR before anyone else. British MEPs were able to cross-examine him at length and in detail, in a way we could never have done

It does not suffice to get all your EU information from a single activist.

It is not owing to the presence of a unification of the nationalists-populists-opportunists that the role of the European Parliament is enlarged. It is EU policy to have an increased role for the EP.

I thought you / Hannan / the nationalists were against more prerogatives for the EP? After all, this increased power to the EP is a precise goal of and reason for Lisbon.

[Tribesman]

It does not suffice to get all your EU information from a single activist.

I can't think why

I am increasingly confident that Britain will get its referendum. I’m not in a position to explain why at this stage, but our hand is stronger than is generally supposed.

So that would be a vote on a treaty that the country has already agreed to, passed through all its countries needed legislative processes and finally been given the Royal assent and deposited to the EU as a treaty ratified by Britain.
It must indeed be a very strange strong hand and it is not surprising that he is unable to explain

[Furunculus]

It does not suffice to get all your EU information from a single activist.

It is not owing to the presence of a unification of the nationalists-populists-opportunists that the role of the European Parliament is enlarged. It is EU policy to have an increased role for the EP.

I thought you / Hannan / the nationalists were against more prerogatives for the EP? After all, this increased power to the EP is a precise goal of and reason for Lisbon.

its just me that wants the EU crippled and stunted to nothing more than the commission, MEP's in the parliament may well take a different view, regardless of the EU they want.

[Furunculus]

I can't think why


So that would be a vote on a treaty that the country has already agreed to, passed through all its countries needed legislative processes and finally been given the Royal assent and deposited to the EU as a treaty ratified by Britain.
It must indeed be a very strange strong hand and it is not surprising that he is unable to explain

to my (limited) knowledge, the treaty has to be ratified by all before it comes into force, and regardless, the joy of sovereign nation states is that they can do what they like, and no sitting government has the ability to bind future governments to its decisions.

[Tribesman]

to my (limited) knowledge, the treaty has to be ratified by all before it comes into force

What has that got to do with the price of cheese?

Hannan talks about a referendum to ratify the treaty by Britain , it is already ratified by Britain.

the joy of sovereign nation states is that they can do what they like, and no sitting government has the ability to bind future governments to its decisions.

Unless of course the treaties they have signed stipulate that the treaty is valid and has unlimited validity and will remain valid.
Since Hannan obviously can't be talking about a vote on Britains ratification of Lisbon as the ratification by Britain is complete(though maybe he is just really confused), then perhaps he is talking about a referendum on reversing the ascession treaty and Britain leaving the EU.
That should be fun as the ascession is by its own terms unlimited and for Britain to make a move to leave would require a completely new treaty which would have to be written and approved by all member states.....and they would also have to rewrite and re-approve all other ascession treaties and have all the governments approve....which would require a nice new EU constitution that all the countries would have to ratify.

So here comes the important question .
Is Hannan absolutely clueless or just incredibly stupid?
And what does the answer say about his supporters?

[Furunculus]

so you're telling me we're stuck in there forever, sounds a bit like an endless prison sentence, all the more reason to break out.

personally i think you're logic is faulty, and the solution does not need to be as dramatic as you think.

[Tribesman]

personally i think you're logic is faulty, and the solution does not need to be as dramatic as you think.

Think of it as a simple business contract, but a business contract that is sewn up very thoroughly.
It is very very hard to get out of a tight contract and you have to pay a hefty charge to all parties to attempt to invalidate it.
But there is an option, the only option really as there is no other method to invalidate the contract.
What you have to do is give all the constituant parts of the UK independence, then negotiate how each independent entity will remove itself from its obligations of inherited binding treaties.....but you will still need the agreement of all the EU countries.
That should be fun as the Welsh, six counties and Scots all benefit greatly from the EU and the cornish seperatists are really clamouring after EU money so you will have the little Englanders all by themselves trying to get a unanimous descision on something that most other groups don't want.

[Furunculus]

if the goal is worthwhile then it's worthwhile pursuing.

regardless of your conjecture on doomsday scenarios, i am still delighted to have the cons as part of a euro-bloc that subscribes to the following:

CONSCIOUS OF THE URGENT NEED TO REFORM THE EU ON THE BASIS OF EUROREALISM, OPENNESS, ACCOUNTABILITY AND DEMOCRACY, IN A WAY THAT RESPECTS THE SOVEREIGNTY OF OUR NATIONS AND CONCENTRATES ON ECONOMIC RECOVERY, GROWTH AND COMPETITIVENESS, THE EUROPEAN CONSERVATIVES AND REFORMISTS GROUP SHARES THE FOLLOWING PRINCIPLES:

1. Free enterprise, free and fair trade and competition, minimal regulation, lower taxation, and small government as the ultimate catalysts for individual freedom and personal and national prosperity.
2. Freedom of the individual, more personal responsibility and greater democratic accountability.
3. Sustainable, clean energy supply with an emphasis on energy security.
4. The importance of the family as the bedrock of society.
5. The sovereign integrity of the nation state, opposition to EU federalism and a renewed respect for true subsidiarity.
6. The overriding value of the transatlantic security relationship in a revitalised NATO, and support for young democracies across Europe.
7. Effectively controlled immigration and an end to abuse of asylum procedures.
8. Efficient and modern public services and sensitivity to the needs of both rural and urban communities.
9. An end to waste and excessive bureaucracy and a commitment to greater transparency and probity in the EU institutions and use of EU funds.
10. Respect and equitable treatment for all EU countries, new and old, large and small.

[Tribesman]

Well that does it , you just know that when polticians start talking about the family being the bedrock they are going to be caught with a male prostitute in a drug fueled orgy

[Furunculus]

oooh, something juicy? has hannan been caught in flagrante delicto?