European Banks: What's Going On?

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

I hear about europe and america, why am I not hearing anything from Australia and Canada? Just not affected?

The Canadian economy is down, and it is everywhere in the Canadian news, but it is not nearly as bad as people make it out to be.

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/b...he-crisis.aspx

[Incongruous]

Right...you know, something that nonsensical defies rational answers. Kindly restate whatever point you were attempting to make..

CR

I don't reply to your posts and expect rational answers CR...

[Louis VI the Fat]

No more talk of the financial crisis. Might as well return to the topic of wealth re-distribution through government means within the EU, the use and the flow of subsidies and tax incentives.

I am not going to write another hefty post about tax havens. Instead, I'll reverse the subject and you all get to show what's wrong with the bit below.


The whole of the EU is simply envious of France's phenomenally succesful agriculture. This succes is not based on a use of government incentives, i.e. taxes and subsidies, but on clever French farmers who outcompete their competitors. The phenomenally clever French farmer and government have simply outwitted their competitors by seizing upon the possibilities the EU market offers. You are all simply resentful of this competitive edge. And rather than being true to your national character of incessant whiners, you should simply work as just hard as the French farmer if you wish to reduce the gap.
Furthermore, you should all mind your own daisy business and not interfere with French sovereign affairs like our use of the Common Agricultural Policy.


Is the above meaningful? If not, what, exactly, is wrong with it?

[JR-]

it is quite easy to believe that the french consider CAP to be a soveriegn french affair. ;)

[Strike For The South]

See France is like The TEXAS of the EU. Others are jealous of what she can produce and then gang up on her. France is a beautiful flower wilting under rage filled continentals and stuffy Brits. So that is why I propose a Texan-France union. The best food the best women the best of everything. We would be the pinnacle of human development.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Think of the ego

[Husar]

*puts France on list of countries to throw out of the EU because they mention that "sovereignity" pipe dream*

[gaelic cowboy]

No more talk of the financial crisis. Might as well return to the topic of wealth re-distribution through government means within the EU, the use and the flow of subsidies and tax incentives.

I am not going to write another hefty post about tax havens. Instead, I'll reverse the subject and you all get to show what's wrong with the bit below.


The whole of the EU is simply envious of France's phenomenally succesful agriculture. This succes is not based on a use of government incentives, i.e. taxes and subsidies, but on clever French farmers who outcompete their competitors. The phenomenally clever French farmer and government have simply outwitted their competitors by seizing upon the possibilities the EU market offers. You are all simply resentful of this competitive edge. And rather than being true to your national character of incessant whiners, you should simply work as just hard as the French farmer if you wish to reduce the gap.
Furthermore, you should all mind your own daisy business and not interfere with French sovereign affairs like our use of the Common Agricultural Policy.


Is the above meaningful? If not, what, exactly, is wrong with it?

I have no problem at all with the CAP come on the French Farmers

[Incongruous]

No more talk of the financial crisis. Might as well return to the topic of wealth re-distribution through government means within the EU, the use and the flow of subsidies and tax incentives.

I am not going to write another hefty post about tax havens. Instead, I'll reverse the subject and you all get to show what's wrong with the bit below.


The whole of the EU is simply envious of France's phenomenally succesful agriculture. This succes is not based on a use of government incentives, i.e. taxes and subsidies, but on clever French farmers who outcompete their competitors. The phenomenally clever French farmer and government have simply outwitted their competitors by seizing upon the possibilities the EU market offers. You are all simply resentful of this competitive edge. And rather than being true to your national character of incessant whiners, you should simply work as just hard as the French farmer if you wish to reduce the gap.
Furthermore, you should all mind your own daisy business and not interfere with French sovereign affairs like our use of the Common Agricultural Policy.


Is the above meaningful? If not, what, exactly, is wrong with it?

I point to:
"as just hard", there are some structural flaws.

[Kralizec]

daisy business?

[InsaneApache]

daisy business?

[Tristuskhan]

(.....) but on clever French farmers who outcompete their competitors.

Louis, you really know nothing about french farmers, my friend!

ps: and before you whip me for not having understood your sense of humour, I must tell you I understood your joke, uh! Still, you don't know much about our ploucs

[Kralizec]

I'm not sure if I get the joke, other than that it's got sarcasm written all over it?

While I can see that threatening supermarkets into stocking native products only, commandeering trucks with foreign products at the border and intimidating import companies could be seen as means of competing with others, they're technically illegal even if they usually go unpunished by the French justice system.

[Crazed Rabbit]

I don't reply to your posts and expect rational answers CR...

So in other words, you can formulate no argument whatsoever against my post?

@Tribesy - links or you're lying.

CR

[Banquo's Ghost]

Furthermore, you should all mind your own daisy business and not interfere with French sovereign affairs like our use of the Common Agricultural Policy.

I'm not sure if I get the joke, other than that it's got sarcasm written all over it?

I believe Louis was using the word daisy as a profanity, as in " business ":

"Furthermore, you should all mind your own damn business and not interfere with French sovereign affairs like our use of the Common Agricultural Policy."

I hope that this helps, and was what you were asking. Apologies if I have seemed patronising by getting the wrong end of the stick.

[gaelic cowboy]

At last two explanations of this mess I can understand.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzJm...eature=related

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXBc...eature=related

[Husar]

LMAO!

Those were great!

[Incongruous]

At last two explanations of this mess I can understand.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzJm...eature=related

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXBc...eature=related

Hahaha

Thanks for that GC, needed a turn up!

[KarlXII]

hilarious. welcome to our nightmare, euro-weenies.

Fail troll is fail.

[gaelic cowboy]

LMAO!

Those were great!

Hahaha

Thanks for that GC, needed a turn up!

I live to serve

[InsaneApache]

I love Bird and Fortune, they've been going for years and always make me laugh.

"So, it's a black man wearing a string vest, sitting on his rotting porch in Alabama who started the financial meltdown?"

"Yes!"

[Louis VI the Fat]

'Daisy' is my gentle euphemism for . The flower picture has become an obscene gesture by now.

The point of my post was that seemingly internal business can only be properly understood within the context of the workings of the EU. The Irish model as much as the French agricultural model. Both policies can only be properly understood within the framework of the EU. Neither would exist without the EU.

The reason why the UK is "down there" with France is because Thatcher's rebate. This rebate is smaler in size than the amount of CAP subsidies that French farmers get

And the rebate is larger than the distance between Paris and London in measured in Visigoth feet. In other words, what is the relevance?
I'll go out on a limb and guess that you read mostly English language foreign news. In the British press, there exists a persistant image of France as forever living off EU funds, with Britain bravely resisting this. That it is only owing to Thatcher that the UK is somewhat shielded from this French thievery. Reality, of course, does not usually correspond with what the British tabloids (from the Daily Mail to the Telegraph) write. Here's the real deal:

The actual numbers.
France is with the top tier of net contributors. Within a margin of a few percent of the UK contribution. To put it differently: the difference is approximately 1/3000th of either GDP.

As importantly, the followinf mechanism:
France is the second largest absolute contributor to the EU. Very closely behind Germany.
Hence there is no financial gain for anybody outside of France from abolishing the CAP. Because, if the CAP is abolished, France will have to get compensated for it's very large absolute contribution through other means. As for Britain, a simple French rebate will be put in place of the CAP payouts.
From this follows that the EU’s agricultural contribution to France is entirely French funded. What’s more, France pays a hefty share of agricultural support for the other countries on top.



EU policy is a result of domestic forces in the member states. For France, this means placating the peasants with handouts. They will only confirm to France paying tens of billions to the EU if there's some immediate financial benefit for them.

The CAP is the price the ideal pays to the pitchfork to become reality.

The CAP lads, is what Paris pays to French peasants in return for their not obstructing France fullfil her vocation: to enslave you all into submission to Paris to turn Europe in a continent wide democracy; with liberty, equality and fraternity from the Atlantic to the Ural.

Still, you don't know much about our ploucs

I wouldn't dream of writing anything about my Bertaèyn friends again. My behind is stil aching from the spanking you gave it last time.

[InsaneApache]

The CAP lads, is what Paris pays to French peasants in return for their not obstructing France fullfil her vocation: to enslave you all into submission to Paris to turn Europe in a continent wide democracy; with liberty, equality and fraternity from the Atlantic to the Urinal.

There, that's more like it.

[KukriKhan]

So, InsaneApache, when you went to the bank to pull out your pension, was there a long line, did you get your money, and did they try to dissuade you? Or did you change your mind?

[InsaneApache]

It's still there. Also my wife changed my mind for me. I know my place.

[Louis VI the Fat]

While medium-sized former Great Powers pour pocket change into the world economy, like wee $700 billion bailout packages, the world's real power gathered in Paris yesterday and announced a plan worth €2 trillion. Or four times the size of the puny American package.

The plan seems to have had immediate effect.

The governments of Europe yesterday embarked on their biggest financial gamble since the launch of the euro single currency with the boldest financial rescue scheme ever seen. They are pledging to buy up tottering banks, underwrite their lending, and flood the markets with liquidity in a package that could run to a staggering €2tn in total across the EU.

The scale, ambition and potential costs of the programmes announced yesterday suggested that European leaders such as Gordon Brown, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and Germany's chancellor, Angela Merkel, were determined to rise to the challenge of the financial crisis through concerted action, displaying a degree of leadership that put Washington, the global economic leader, in the shade.

The banking sectors in Spain and France are believed to be the healthiest in Europe at the moment, requiring less intervention. Nonetheless, Sarkozy proposed legislation to be pushed through parliament this week allocating €360bn, €40bn of which could be used to buy up bits of ailing banks.

[KukriKhan]

Nice to know the official abbreviation for trillion will be 'tn' - I've wondered about that a few weeks now since the money amounts mentioned/reported have reached beyond the stratosphere.

My only advice to Europe: be wary of the details, mates. Over here, our Congress, in grand post9-11 style, gave our Executive Branch a blank check, to use as they see fit. Not a penny is spent yet, as far as we know, but what they say they'll spend it on changes daily. And all thay have to do is report twice a year.

I recommend putting a few more strings on your bailouts rescue plans.

[Fragony]

Good news is that it seems to be working for now, and that the EU is actually capable of organising something greater then a birthday party, impressive. We will see.

[Husar]

What I heard on the news here is that for german banks the money is tied to conditions and they will have to ask for it.

Basically if they take money from the state they will have to limit manager payments to 500,000 € a year, no bonuses, no extras, dividends go to the government and not the shareholders etc etc.
They said a bank would have to be pretty desperate to ask for that money. I think it sounds good and really works like that.

[Tribesman]

@Tribesy - links or you're lying.

CR

Perhaps you may eventually find that it is a good idea to learn about something before you decide comment on it .

[Kralizec]

France is the second largest absolute contributor to the EU. Very closely behind Germany.

if you paid attention to earlier years, you'll notice that France's net contribution used to be tiny until a few years ago. In 2003 the Netherlands, a country with 1/4 of the population of France, made a larger absolute contrubition to the EU budget than France. Click
The budget is a lot more reasonable now due to long-overdue CAP and budget reforms wich France has always resisted.

If France likes to run a subsidy program to support farmers who can't make the sort of living they feel entitled to financially viable, be my guest - but don't use it as a backdoor reduction of your contribution to the rest of the EU's activities.