The Anglo-Hungarian Empire

[George Oscar Bluth II]

What kind of a psychopath sends out christmas cards with pictures of themselves on them?

Yet more proof that politicians aren't normal...

[rudi]

Put very simply, 26 out of the 27 European members have decided that Europe needs new financial regulations. These regulations would be the next step in turning Europe into one giant 'country', with France and Germany in charge.

That sounds great. France and Germany are run much better than this country.

[All Surrogate]

Can we at least have a butlerian jihad next week?

No more software engineering for you!

[Zero Gravitas]

That's cool, I've always wanted to keep bees.

[Howj Begg]

What kind of a psychopath sends out christmas cards with pictures of themselves on them?

Yet more proof that politicians aren't normal...

If they're wearing stockings and suspenders and flashing you that's ok, I hope?

[biggytitbo]

That's cool, I've always wanted to keep bees.

I feel sorry for bees. Did you know in a bees entire lifetime, it only produces 1/12th of a teaspoon of honey. It's like a politician  only telling one small lie in their entire career.

[Zero Gravitas]

I can only produce about a teaspoon and a half a day so relative to mass and expected lifespan[nb]~155.2 mg and ~42 days[/nb] that's pretty good going[nb]More than 4 times it's own weight with standard assumptions about honey density, totally ignoring bee bread production.[/nb]!

[biggytitbo]

I'd like a giant bee that I could saddle up and ride round the sky of  Leeds.

[Zero Gravitas]

Confronted by the reality of a bee that could carry you airborne you'd scream your little lungs out.

[biggytitbo]

I'd stroke the giant bee because giant bees have lovely soft fur.

[Zero Gravitas]

No, at the sizes required it'd be a mass of chitinous spines, razor sharp at the tips and more than 3cm thick at their bases.

Nothing about a bee scales well.

[biggytitbo]

I think you're talking out of your hat you lunatic.

[Zero Gravitas]

I'd be happy to find a insect gigantification expert to back me up but they're all busy fucking your mum.

[biggytitbo]

On their way to fucking my mum they disclosed to me that they'd actaully perfected personal flying giant bees but where saving the tech for worthy people like me and not cunts like you. That was their actually words.

[Zero Gravitas]

That's impossible because they don't exist, the whole implication was that your mum hasn't had a good rodding in years!

[Famous Mortimer]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16114902

There's the thing. It's not as if every single European country doesn't have it's own right-wing party. And yet we have the only one willing (with 24% of the total possible vote) to go it alone. Why is this?

The national myth that the UK played an important part in WWII?
Being an island makes us feel special?
Obeying our banking pruppet-masters?

"Switzerland is a model towards which Britain can turn itself"...yeah, right.

I like Iceland's model. We should all have a similar attitude to being asked to pay for a crisis caused by people in banking wanting to make infinite amounts of money.

http://www.truth-out.org/why-iceland-should-be-news-not/1322327303

[Danger Man]

Iceland doesn't have an army! I knew it wasn't just Costa Rica....

Having crushed any hopes of voting reform or greater European integration, Nick Clegg can get to work on bringing back the death penalty and making abortion and homosexuality illegal again.

Then he can retire, having destroyed Liberalism once and for all.

[thepuffpastryhangman]

The daftest thing agreeable Nick has said on the matter is 'Dave had no choice, the back bench Tories wouldn't have stood for it'.

They'd of had no choice. What the hell is Clegg on about?

[Blinder Data]

I took that as a sly dig at Cameron's reasoning for the veto: not 'in the national interest' as he claims, but to appease the Eurosceptic backbenchers of his party.

I don't see how what Clegg has said is daft. The backbenchers aren't happy with the coalition nor Cameron, and if angered enough over issues like Europe they could threaten to boot him out.

[biggytitbo]

It's funny, when you step back and look at the reality of what's happened. We have two groups...one of those groups ideas have failed so complety that's it's brought the entire EU to the brink of disaster.


The other group predicted what would happen almost to the letter.


One of those groups solution to the crisis they created is more of the same. The other solution is less.



Yet which one are you siding with?

[thepuffpastryhangman]

One of those groups solution to the crisis they created is more of the same. The other solution is less.

More of the same? What more spending like there's no tomorrow with zero slapped wrists for doing so? No group is sugesting that.

I took that as a sly dig at Cameron's reasoning for the veto: not 'in the national interest' as he claims, but to appease the Eurosceptic backbenchers of his party.

I don't see how what Clegg has said is daft. The backbenchers aren't happy with the coalition nor Cameron, and if angered enough over issues like Europe they could threaten to boot him out.

But could "they...threaten to boot him out"? It's only around a third of Tories isn't it? And any candidate they did put forward wouldn't stand a chance of becoming leader.

[Still Not George]

More of the same? What more spending like there's no tomorrow with zero slapped wrists for doing so? No group is sugesting that.

Public spending has and has had virtually nothing to do with the Eurozone crisis, regardless of what the biggys of the world might continually insinuate.

[thepuffpastryhangman]

Whether it did or not. I was attempting to confirm what biggy was referring to (based on his previous) and saying 'but neither "group" is suggesting that' as he seemed to be implying they were.

Nor did I say "public" (spending). You're not suggesting that no spending of any kind didn't play a part are you?

[rudi]

Public spending has and has had virtually nothing to do with the Eurozone crisis, regardless of what the biggys of the world might continually insinuate.

Precisely. Slashing public spending is being mooted as the solution for a problem it neither caused nor is being addressed in any meaningful way whatsoever (especially by the UK).

[biggytitbo]

Slashing public spending is not so much to 'solve' the crisis, its so over indebted governments can keep borrowing remember? If your IRs hit 9-10% you'll go bust within weeks. Its kicking the can down the road.


The problem with the euro specifically is its structurally unworkable due to the imbalances in the the different economies. Debt is a separate problem on top of that that all Western nations are lumbered with. Its slowly zombifiying the west because its been decided by someone that nobody who made the bad loans is allowed to ever lose.


The compounded problem for countries like Ireland and Greece is they can't devalue or change their IRs to get themselves out of the mess they're in because they're locked into the euro, and this face no other option but a big douse of austerity.


That's why even closer fiscal union is a recipe for utter disaster, just like the original idea of the euro was. This flannel about imposing tighter restrictions on tax and spend appears to be forgetting that those rules have already existed for 20 years - nobody followed them.

[Still Not George]

Nor did I say "public" (spending). You're not suggesting that no spending of any kind didn't play a part are you?

Yes, I am. The problem has very little to do with personal debt itself and everything to do with massively over-leveraged speculation on that debt. The EU banks aren't broke because the Irish and Greek can't repay their debts, it's because they took out a shitload of insurance on crap in the hope of scoring big.

The bad loans aren't actually the problem and never have been. Public spending isn't the problem and it never has been. The problem is that no-one, but no-one, is willing to tell the fucktards in the City of London to cut it the fuck out, because that would turn off the magic money spigot and we'd have to face up to the fact that 30 years of Thatcherism and Thatcherism-lite has entirely destroyed the rest of our economic base.

[thepuffpastryhangman]

As we used to say over a bowl of wholemeal porridge, back in Trenchtown, 'No debt, no leverage'.

EDIT - Around, I dunno, two years ago? I was heavily shouted down on here when I suggested it was impossible to create real growth from a service/retail economy based upon domestic consumption.
Told I was being a backward mercantilist or something and tvst I just didn't get the new juju.

[Still Not George]

Go forth and link, dear pastry.

[thepuffpastryhangman]

I dunno how to find it. Other than trawling through every page of posts. I can't do that on my phone and maintain the little sanity I've got left.
I could do it later or tomorrow morning.
Or maybe someone knows a better way? I think it's possible to search for a word on a specific site isn't it? In which case "mercantile" or "mercantilism" should take ya thereabouts. I dunno how personally, sorry.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Cutting public spending and laying people off along with the other austerity measures has unsurprisingly not resulted in a very productive period for the European economies. You can't also get the welfare bill down at the same time unless you decide that you no longer have a moral obligation for the welfare of your own citizens.