Quote :

"He's right about Greece. I was a bit surprised that they didn't vote to leave a while back. They probably should have, bit I think they saw the EU as a life preserver and held onto it like grim death. "

If I was Greek, I'd've voted out. Their economy is not going to be any better for the next 20 years all so a bunch of Keynesians can play extend and pretend with massive amounts of debt that will destroy the economic prospects for a generation's worth of Greek children as they come of age. Would life have sucked for awhile if they brought back the drachma? Yes, it would have. But they might've actually recovered by now. Sometimes you don't have a good choice, you have bad choice #1 and bad choice #2. You want to be part of the euro, great, that means the European Central Bank controls the level of state spending you guys do and can tell you to raise taxes as well. And don't bitch about it. To be part of the euro means Greece willingly gave up its financial sovereignty because Greeks thought a bunch of bankers in Frankfurt would do a better job running Greece than Greek politicians could. Some people may take umbridge with that, but that is the end result of what happened.

I read Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of the Telegraph a bit. Man's an excellent writer. He was the only person in a high-level publication I ever read writing about the EU in 2006 or so that predicted what would happen in the next decade as far as the financial downfalls that were going to occur and how the EU leaders were blind to how no one agreed to pay for anyone else or the lack of federalism sharing would come back to bite EU leaders in the ass. Here was his pre-vote article on it. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/06/12/brexit-vote-is-about-the-supremacy-of-parliament-and-nothing-els/

Quote :

"My Europhile Greek friend Yanis Varoufakis and I both agree on one central point, that today's EU is a deformed halfway house that nobody ever wanted. His solution is a great leap forward towards a United States of Europe with a genuine parliament holding an elected president to account. Though even he doubts his dream. "There is a virtue in heroic failure" he said. I do not think this is remotely possible, or would be desirable if it were, but it is not on offer anyway. Six years into the eurozone crisis and there is no a flicker of fiscal union: no eurobonds, no Hamiltonian redemption fund, no pooling of debt, and no budget transfers. The banking union belies its name. Germany and the creditor states have dug in their heels. Where we concur is that the EU as constructed is not only corrosive but ultimately dangerous, and that is the phase we have now reached as governing authority crumbles across Europe. The Project bleeds the lifeblood of the national institutions, but fails to replace them with anything lovable or legitimate at a European level. It draws away charisma, and destroys it. This is how democracies die. "They are slowly drained of what makes them democratic, by a gradual process of internal decay and mounting indifference, until one suddenly notices that they have become something different, like the republican constitutions of Athens or Rome, or the Italian city-states of the Renaissance," says Lord Sumption of our Supreme Court."

[Edited on June 24, 2016 at 5:18 PM. Reason : /]

6/24/2016 5:00:21 PM

Quote :

"You want to be part of the euro, great, that means the European Central Bank controls the level of state spending you guys do and can tell you to raise taxes as well."

Raising taxes doesn't do much to a country that considers tax evasion a national pastime. The Greek black market is estimated at 25% of their GDP, and their own government agencies are notorious for corruption.

6/24/2016 5:34:23 PM

So Cameron is standing down, Labour leader is going against a vote of no confidence.

And we're going to have a new President in January.

The world is seriously about to change for anglos.

6/24/2016 5:46:00 PM

^^^ A return to the drachma is just default by another name. What for? Why not just default? Repudiate all of it and be done with it. And I mean all of it: government employee salaries and pensions included. Banks get taken over and mark down their deposits. Full systemic default for everyone. Then, everyone lives off their savings for a bit and waits for the recovery, which will be fast, since Europe is filled with Euros able to swoop in and buy land labor and equipment for cheap.

Other than the ability to default without printing the word "default" on the legislation, I see no benefit to a return to the drachma. I guess that is the point? "Default" legislation would never be passed, but nationalism might allow a return to the drachma?

6/25/2016 9:43:46 AM

Quote :

"A return to the drachma is just default by another name. What for? Why not just default?"

The people that control their purse strings will not allow them to. It'd harm banks in France and Germany too much.

The reason to return to the drachma is it provides a shock absorber that would allow Greece to recover. When the economy goes bad, the value of the currency goes down. Now, if we're talking Venezuela or Zimbabwe or the Weimar Republic, this could be hyperinflation and terrible. But if it goes down even say 25% as the Icelandic krona did when they defaulted, this serves as a bonus to domestic economic activity because it makes goods made there cheaper when exported and it makes imports more expensive, which encourages locals to buy homegrown stuff. The euro is based around the German economy pretty much and it is way too overvalued for the Greek economy, and there has been no convergence of the latter to be more like the former. That's essentially what Germany is trying to force at the moment: trying to bring other states' economies up to them. The end result is they'll cure the disease but kill the patient.

[Edited on June 25, 2016 at 10:43 AM. Reason : /]

6/25/2016 10:19:35 AM

^ problem is that politically, telling people you're going to take a measure that will definitively be painful for them and will ruin at least some people's' lives and possibly kill some people for some possible benefit later, when there is an alternative that sort of maintains the current status quo but with little feasibility for big gains, the latter often sounds more palatable.

i guess that's what makes a leader great though, if they can make the case for the former (and bonus points for doing it without deception and subterfuge).

6/25/2016 11:31:54 AM

It's the same reason nobody wants to talk about social security. The truth is that it needs a significant overhaul to keep it viable but the reforms needed would anger and hurt a lot of people receiving benefits and those currently paying in. Muddling through and kicking the can down the road is the more politically acceptable solution if you want to be reelected or want your party to stay in power.

The Greek citizens didn't want to hear the truth about their debt situation, the leadership made promises they knew they couldn't keep, they got a worse deal than the initial deal, and now they're stuck with it. Most human being imgs aren't really capable of anything but short term thinking.

6/25/2016 4:24:10 PM

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-36632539# - Labour's Shadow Foreign Secretary Hilary Benn (a high up person in the Parliament for Labour) was fired by Jeremy Corbyn from the Shadow Cabinet amid reports he was orchestrating opposition to Corbyn for the no confidence vote Monday.

Quote :

"Tim Shipman ?@ShippersUnbound 28m28 minutes ago Corbyn sacks Hilary Benn at 1.15am. When people tried to tell him Brexit had won he couldn't be got out of bed."

Note from an article earlier where Benn was still in the planning stage.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/25/hilary-benn-jeremy-corbyn-labour-leadership-eu-referendum-brexit

Quote :

"Leaked internal Labour party polling suggested that Labour would attract nearly 3 million fewer votes than it did in the 2015 general election if one were called today. It shows that just 71% of those who voted for Ed Miliband’s Labour party in May last year say they would vote Labour now, and this drops further – to 67% – among working and lower middle-class C2DE voters. Some claim that the Labour northern heartlands are breaking off from the party, as they have already done in Scotland. If there is a general election soon, as it appears may be the case, Labour could be decimated, it is said."

6/25/2016 9:53:24 PM

Half the Labour cabinet has resigned this morning.

Looks like there will be a vote of no confidence in Corbyn tomorrow. He has stated however that he will run for the leadership again. Corbyn came to power in an odd scenario. Labour wanted to have the party membership vote for their Leader in Parliament to increase democracy. An American equivalent would be if party members the country over voted for the Democratic or Republican party leaders in the House. Corbyn was a far-left guy propped up by the unions and the majority of Labour MPs in Parliament do not back him. So if he gets a vote of no confidence tomorrow, runs for the leadership again and wins, you might see the Labour Party split in two. A lot of documentation has been passed on to news orgs the past few days giving evidence of how Corbyn sabotaged Labour's "Remain" campaign.

[Edited on June 26, 2016 at 10:40 AM. Reason : /]

6/26/2016 10:21:58 AM

Quote :

"bonus to domestic economic activity because it makes goods made there cheaper when exported"

Or you could just lower the price, as normally occurs when you have a major recession (employers cut wages, land prices collapse, etc. etc). When a region in the US hits economic tough times, that is what happens, and they manage to attract new employers to buy the cheap land and employ the cheap labor in dollars, not distress-ville dollars.

The question is, which will work faster. In the case of Greece, it isn't that the old employers were inefficient, negotiated wage contracts too high, and just needs to default a little on those promises to keep operating. In that case, inflation would do nicely. But in the case of greece, the largest employer is the government using borrowed money. Inflation would help the government default on these obligations to its employees, but what is needed are new employers after the government lays much of its employees off. And having ready access to foreign capital markets would speed that up a lot.

6/26/2016 2:41:14 PM

^ Allright then. They're in year 5 out of 20 of their economy being shit and the youth having no future unless they emigrate abroad.

[Edited on June 26, 2016 at 5:33 PM. Reason : /]

6/26/2016 5:33:29 PM

Greece's economy has been shit for a looooooong time even before this recent bailout and austerity measures. There are legit questions about whether or not they should have stayed in or left the EU. I would suggest that surrendering control of their government to the EU (which is basically what has happened as a result of debt structure terms) is probably not a great idea.

Exiting the EU and dropping the euro probably would have been even more painful short term, but might have led to a quicker recovery.

I think either way Greece would still be fucked, and might not be any better off now, but as long as their creditors are basically running the country they have no flexibility or control.

6/26/2016 9:38:29 PM

I still have no idea what the Brexit means. But it was good for a laugh:

http://mashable.com/2016/06/24/brexit-latervia-italeave-austria-la-vista/#kTTZTRz97uqn

http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/06/24/480949383/britains-google-searches-for-what-is-the-eu-spike-after-brexit-vote

6/26/2016 10:27:07 PM

STOP TANKING MY RETIREMENT

6/27/2016 10:31:08 AM

The Labour Party have had a look at the Republican Party in the U.S. and decided "we want to try that". The party is full-on civil war.

http://www.politico.eu/article/inside-account-of-labour-mps-attacks-on-jeremy-corbyn-shadow-cabinet-resignations-brexit/

Quote :

"Inside account of Labour MPs’ attacks on Jeremy Corbyn The charges against the Labour leader as set out by his own MPs. By TOM MCTAGUE 6/27/16, 9:35 PM CET Updated 6/27/16, 10:04 PM CET LONDON — At an extraordinary meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party in the House of Commons Monday, Jeremy Corbyn fought for his political life. MP after MP lined up to attack the Labour leader and demand his immediate resignation, according to several MPs who were at the meeting. Corbyn point blank refused. After leaving the packed private meeting, where a motion of no confidence against him was formally moved, the Labour leader headed straight to a protest on Parliament Square which had been quickly arranged by Momentum, the pressure group set up to defend his leadership. Up to 3,000 hard-line supporters gathered, chanting “Tories out, Corbyn in,” booing Tony Blair and the Labour MPs who had moved against their leader. John McDonnell, Corbyn’s closest ally and shadow chancellor, addressed the crowd first, announcing that the Labour leader would not resign and would stand again if there was another leadership election. “We’re not going anywhere,” he declared to huge cheers. Corbyn took to the stage next, equally defiant. The Labour Party now faces an internal constitutional crisis, unable to remove a leader his MPs will not serve. MPs emerged shell-shocked from the meeting, and told POLITICO they were contemplating the very real possibility that it will have to split. The Parliamentary Labour Party is now considering electing its own leader in a move which would essentially create a separate party. This nuclear option is being referred to by MPs as a “universal declaration of independence.”"

comment:

Quote :

"For the record the Labour Party is facing a Trump moment; a leader who the party know isn't fit to be Prime Minister, who lacks the support of the leadership, and whose electoral strategy is 'let's hold huge rallies'."

[Edited on June 27, 2016 at 6:01 PM. Reason : /]

6/27/2016 5:59:36 PM

Quote :

"^ Allright then. They're in year 5 out of 20 of their economy being shit and the youth having no future unless they emigrate abroad."

But they didn't fix the problem. The government didn't fire everyone. It didn't even entirely default. Everyone is still entirely dependent upon the government of Greece as their chief source of income.

6/27/2016 11:10:23 PM

I've seen a number of links today purporting Britain might have a way out of Brexit, or there might be another vote, then you click it and see it's just some dumb petition.

6/27/2016 11:15:21 PM

Are they required to act on the vote?

6/28/2016 6:37:06 AM

It was advisory only.

LoneShark, you're absolutely right. We're six years on from when this problem first appeared, and they didn't fix the problem.

6/28/2016 8:05:13 AM

Quote :

"then you click it and see it's just some dumb petition"

a petition that shows 42,000 signatures coming from the Vatican. 4chan and reddit did a number on that one.

6/28/2016 11:13:14 AM

Corbyn lost vote of confidence from MPs in his own party 172 to 40. He's vowed to not resign and if a Party leadership election is called he'll stand again.

Meanwhile, the next Prime Minister looks like it could be a lady named Theresa May.

[Edited on June 28, 2016 at 12:12 PM. Reason : .]

6/28/2016 12:11:19 PM

^^^ so is there any reason why they can't ignore it and stay in the EU? would that have any consequences?

6/28/2016 12:47:41 PM

For starters, you're tellling the electorate "fuck you, your opinion doesn't matter", and that's part of the problem.

People change the votes of the parties they vote for in Britain far more than they do here. So if people feel taken for granted, they could not just vote for the party, and the significantly smaller sizes of constituencies in comparison to our House of Representatives means much fewer votes are required to switch seats.

6/28/2016 3:26:13 PM

Yes, it was the definition of a non-binding referendum. However, setting aside a clear unambiguous result should piss off even those that voted to remain. Elections should on occasion have delineated consequences, and these consequences were very clearly spelled out before-hand. Imagine if the voters had voted to remain but Parliament left the EU anyway.

[Edited on June 29, 2016 at 1:04 PM. Reason : .,.]

6/29/2016 1:03:54 PM

Quote :

"For starters, you're tellling the electorate "fuck you, your opinion doesn't matter", and that's part of the problem. "

That is indeed the problem with the EU. They have been saying that to the people of europe for a while now. An unelected government who just decide what they want regardless of the people.

I hope the EU crumbles into the dust.

6/29/2016 3:49:29 PM

Quote :

"Elections should on occasion have delineated consequences, and these consequences were very clearly spelled out before-hand. Imagine if the voters had voted to remain but Parliament left the EU anyway."

The 4 largest parties in Parliament all wanted to stay (with the exception of Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn but his party forced him to be Remain), so that wasn't going to happen, but a bunch of Remain people weren't going to spell out the actions for Leave.

6/29/2016 5:25:52 PM

After all other Conservative Party candidates dropped out of the running, Theresa May will become UK Prime Minister one Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Labour will have a contested leadership election.

7/11/2016 10:35:07 PM

UK elections are some weird things. Why was Elmo and Lord Buckethead on stage with the PM?

Also how on earth can May work with the DUP, who are basically an extremist party for all intents and purposes.

[Edited on June 9, 2017 at 8:03 AM. Reason : All seriousness, isn't DUP aligned with one of the last paramilitary holdovers from the troubles?]

6/9/2017 8:01:44 AM

Womp womp

7/9/2018 10:11:11 AM

Maybe the Brits can show us how it's done in this instance. They are basically rejecting the results of an election that was gamed by all the same players who fucked with ours. Brexit was a test run for the Cambridge Analytica social media bot blitz backed by Russia/Mercer/Bannon.

[Edited on July 9, 2018 at 11:35 AM. Reason : .]

7/9/2018 11:33:20 AM

There was more gaming going on with the Remain side, yet they still lost. Article 50 has already been invoked, so I don't see how you can interpret this as Brexit not happening.

7/9/2018 6:42:33 PM

It's not certain that article 50 can't be revoked, it's likely that the other nations would require some kind of penalty and then let them revoke article 50 or come up with another process that has the same effect since that's in their interest

7/9/2018 8:38:32 PM

I think it's been pretty clear for a while now that Brexit isn't happening. You can do your own research, but a strategy that is both politically and economically feasible just doesn't exist. A clean break would be economically devastating and is only supported by the far right. Something like the deal that just fell through essentially leaves the UK at the mercy of EU economic regulations without a seat at the table for actually writing them. While that's fine for a smaller economy like Norway, no one (except May I guess) supports becoming a client state of Germany and France.

7/10/2018 11:53:07 AM

Not sure where this should go but WTAF?

https://twitter.com/lachlan/status/1029063741172801539?s=21

[Edited on August 13, 2018 at 2:07 PM. Reason : You can believe Israel is very wrong with how they deal with Palestineans but this is just awful]

8/13/2018 2:04:24 PM

^
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-45171633/jeremy-corbyn-reacts-to-terror-memorial-claims

8/13/2018 2:30:12 PM

https://www.france24.com/en/20181115-pound-plunges-uk-ministers-quit-over-brexit-deal

Quote :

"[British Prime Minister Theresa] May had been preparing to sell her Brexit deal to parliament, boosted by news that Europe is preparing a rapid summit to sign off on the agreement. However, her efforts unravelled spectacularly as [Britain's Brexit secretary Dominic] Raab resigned along with work and pensions secretary Esther McVey and junior Northern Ireland minister Shailesh Vara."

11/15/2018 2:41:15 PM

While all of this is going to be a disaster the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland will be a real cluster fuck.

11/15/2018 4:10:16 PM

11/15/2018 7:09:48 PM

Shit is gonna pop off in a major way today, getcha popcorn ready.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOacA3RYrXk

Long story short, May is pushing to delay a vote on Brexit that is almost sure to fail, and it's unclear if she even has the votes to do that. She's gonna give a speech to parliament in ~45 minutes, after which all bets are off.

[Edited on December 10, 2018 at 9:49 AM. Reason : .]

12/10/2018 9:47:58 AM

Theresa May survives a no confidence vote, but with 117 conservative MPs voting against her (200 for). That is very bad, in US terms, that would be like if over 1/3 of Republican Senators/House members voted to remove a Republican Speaker/Majority leader. This leaves her in a very very weak position politically, almost zero chance her Brexit plan passes Parliament.

[Edited on December 12, 2018 at 4:10 PM. Reason : .]

12/12/2018 4:06:25 PM

The Parliamentary system is such an entertaining form of government. Makes ours look even more like paint drying. They are always on the brink of something wild.

12/12/2018 4:48:08 PM

12/12/2018 7:28:05 PM

May's Brexit deal lost by 230 votes, the biggest defeat ever for a majority party.

1/15/2019 2:49:38 PM

Lol.

They all know what should and needs to happen but no one has the sac to say it.

1/15/2019 3:04:47 PM

Two months later, another failed vote and only two weeks left.

Yet tonight neither Corbyn nor May had the guts to say what everyone already knows...

3/12/2019 3:56:23 PM

brexit only passed cause of russia collusion.

3/12/2019 8:21:45 PM

This whole thing has been fascinating to follow, especially in terms of the parallels to our own political struggles. Brexit went down in flames because they allowed the withdrawal process to be hijacked by the British version of our Tea Party/Trump Republicans. Just like our hard right conservatives always insist on the absolute worst version of a thing, they rejected a Brexit that kept the UK in some kind of customs union/fta, and essentially set themselves a failure trap with the whole Ireland border issue. A Canada or Norway type deal would have solved that from the outset and gotten enough Labour support to easily pass. They may still do it, but then they have to ask if a different color passport was really worth 3 years of internal strife and economic loss.

[Edited on March 13, 2019 at 10:29 AM. Reason : .]

3/13/2019 10:25:52 AM

The monumental stupidity that has attended every step in this process continues to amaze me.

The Leave camp really did think that Brussels was going to roll out the red carpet for them to leave. That they were going to walk away with everything they wanted and nothing they didn't want. And now that they know better, they have no idea what to do about it, so they just double down.

Maybe it was different in the domestic UK press, but BBC World is my main news source and I notice that the Ireland situation didn't even really start coming up there until a few months ago. It's like it didn't occur to anybody that the Irish border might be kind of a hot button issue (you know, like it has been for most of the last century).

3/13/2019 10:34:18 AM

I read BBC too and I feel like they've been discussing the "backstop" and "hard/soft borders" for awhile. That said, I think they've done a better job explaining the issue lately. Maybe they took for granted that readers understood?

3/13/2019 11:48:36 AM

For a while, certainly. I guess what I mean is I don't recall seeing it getting nearly so much play before the referendum.

3/13/2019 12:40:44 PM