The link requires a login to read the full article; in any case, the ref is to Greece and there are plenty of other sources for information about that case study.
As recently as last night on UK TV there ran a 1 hour doc about the islands and mainland of Greece (with a second episode to run next Sunday).
The island of Crete was a particularly striking report.
Even allowing for an amount of stage management of such TV reporting it was striking.

Greece has overall unemployment rates of 25% and 50% for minors: this in a country which has a recent history of government by the "Junta" of generals, never mind the turn toward communism immediately after WW2.

The contrast between the northern Europe countries and Greece is stark.
Even geographically, Greece is out on a limb with no contiguous boundary to the Shengen zone.

Regarding how the EU goes about it's business, see the economic crisis thread for what happened in Cyprus* as an indication of how the ECB does business with the nation states that adopted the Euro.

*Ps
It's on page 8:-
http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...crisis-59853-8

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Dave

I've just noticed that the documentary about Greece is repeated on BBC2 this very night - at 2315.

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Dave

I get the impression that you may not be aware of the interview in the link below.
It is relevant to the points you make above and I have underlined the most relevant.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/we-re-g...udan-iran/5166

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Dave

I think this sums it up

Portugal wrinkles its nose at UK's EU deal - BBC News

The Portuguese economy is in the toilet. They view coming to the UK as easier than learning a language other than English and like our modern society over their own traditional one. Their government doesn't give a damn about the UK but will sell the commission their vote if they get something they do want.

The result is that
Londoners cant afford the rent in their own city and every green space will be built on. We don't train nurses because we can just hire Portuguese ones. It's like working hard to buy a nice house then finding every tramp in the city can just move in.

The Portuguese need to sort their own country not move here or their economy will remain stuffed. Britain needs to be forced to use its own resources first.

Andy

Portugal is one of the PIGS, and the financial commentators have provided a lot of input to where those countries are heading.
All of the PIGS economies have gone down the pan; currently, many commentaries forecast that Italy will be next to go the way of Greece.

The BBC article reminds me of the 50 States of the USA, wherein the populations are relatively mobile and go to where ever the employment opportunities are best for their personal circumstances - levels of education, training, knowledge of the local language and their "get up and go" approach to life in general (a bit like a motorcycle traveller).

We in the UK are hoisted on our own petard; having given the English language to the world, more or less by accident, it is no surprise that it is an attraction to use fluency in that language for individuals to better themselves.
"Fluency" though; there is a big difference between a basic conversational skill and dealing with, say, technical "speak" - some years ago I attended a meeting with a german construction company based in Cologne and my conversational german lasted no more than a couple of minutes once the topics moved on to talk about bridging over the river Rhine.

Of course, we export our pensioners to the PIGS countries, for their own better personal lives, lower cost of living, better weather in the winter, improvement in their arthritic symptoms, a better diet etc etc.
Thereby, we export our £ denominated pensions, convert them to Euro and spend cash into those economies.

Portugal gives us, in return, better football managers.

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Dave

This is how the EC sees the way the EU economy is going.
(viewed from their desks there is just one economy covering the 28 nations).

EUR-Lex - 52015DC0690 - EN - EUR-Lex

ps
It is remarkably short considering that it does address the issues of 28 highly diverse nations.
Having skim read it, I see many platitudes therein.

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Dave

In Spanish newspaper ABC it was news a few days ago that the current Portuguese government blackmailed the European Commission with the subject of Brexit. It was said that if the Commission did not approve Portugal's state budget, then, the Portuguese Government would veto the concessions made to Britain when the time comes.

It does not surprise me the least.



As absurd as it may seem, that is exactly the mandate of the Commission just like ECB's mandate is to look at the weighted average of the Eurozone countries' indicators when deciding monetary policy.

That is the EU and this is what is in the treaties. Mind you, these treaties were negotiated and approved by the governments of the constituent countries. They did not come from Pluto.

Nor I, this is not extraordinary and the Portugese have been shaping up for a confrontation with the EU central powers ever since their last internal elections at the tail end of last year. All of the PIGS are anti-austerity to different degrees whereas the central powers are as we know them all too well.

I wouldn't describe it as "blackmail" (but I can also understand why a Spanish newspaper would use that terminology about the Portuguese, or the Catalonians for that matter).
It is a normal part of political (in this case) chicanery prior to the next big round of agreements/summit.
All of us do the same thing when "buying off the wife in order to take the next riding trip over the horizon".

The Portugese may have more success with their budgetting than the Greeks managed last Summer because the circumstances have changed with the Brexit question.

The Mandate:-
Fiscal policy sure. Although the EC is supposed to be the executive body responsible for implementing the policies of all 28 nations, all 5 presidents can be seen to be totally engrossed in the preservation of the Eurozone.
Hence the interests of all of the EU nations receive scant attention at present.

Monetary, no - as you say, that lies with the 19 alone (I think that is the number who are members of the eurozone).

But, yes, these points do go to the heart of what our PM has been negotiating with the other nations, the EU bureaucrats, the EC bureaucrats and who ever else might get to sit up to the table. e.g. Will the £ support the Euro?
(there was a moderately interesting wee snippet a few days ago, when the peanut farmer, ex-President, was wheeled in for an interview on some new item - he fluffed his lines and, fairly quickly for an old man, corrected himself. To wit, "Britain staying in the EU is good for America" which is probably true from their viewpoint).

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Dave

The exact word "blackmail" is mine. Not from ABC. They merely stated the facts which amount to blackmail.


Portugal's situation is different than Greece's. Portugal is not so down the drain as Greece was... for now. In any event either bankruptcy or a new bailout (if other Euro countries are willing to throw more good money after bad) are on the cards for Portugal with this new red government.

Following up on that report from the Commission I have been reading a critique of a central tenet contained in the EC plans, namely the intention to run with an investment plan (EFSI).
That critique, in the two links below, is based on the Von Mises school of economic thinking (which was mentioned in this thread previously - as shown in the annual growth plan).

The EU’s Stalinesque “4 Year Plan” |


The EU’s Ghost Airports |

The individual nations through the EC subscribe to a centralised, planned economy if this critique is accepted, no matter what the political colours of those nations (along the way I noted that the UK is making the largest single contribution to this EFSI, by a small margin - as shown in the annual growth plan).

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Dave

......... I mean the Latin Monetary Union which collapsed with the onset of the First World War.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_Monetary_Union

There was also a Scandinavian Monetary Union in those turbulent times.

Circumstances are different nowadays, we are much more sophisticated in our thinking and more mature in our approach to life in general and financial and monetary matters in particular.

An across Europe common currency was proposed in 1929, in the run up to WW2:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Econom...European_Union

"First idea of an economic and monetary union in Europe were raised well before establishing the European Communities. For example, already in the League of Nations, Gustav Stresemann asked in 1929 for a European currency[3] against the background of an increased economic division due to a number of new nation states in Europe after World War I"

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Dave

The currency is typical European thinking. In Alsace or Luxembourg they would always accept any currency from Francs and Marks through to cigarettes and nylons depending on the situation. The exchange rate depended on if you bought there every week or turned up wearing a Hawaiian shirt and checked trousers. The government silliness trying to look richer than they were and gain power over their neighbours just creates a tradeable commodity and puts pressures on economies working in synthetic conditions.

The currency trade is now cut out and business finds it easier but the replacement has just been to set up different price structures for different countries in the same currency. Lack of enforcement of the single market means one exchange rate has been replaced by thousands. Touratech are a prime example; German prices are only for Germans.

Andy

Yes, Portugal is marginally better off than Greece, and the circumstances that led to those 4 nations achieving the distinction of the label "PIGS" (by the financial media) do vary.
But all 4 have had weak economies for some time, Ireland much less so now, and those in the south of Europe are being cleaned out by the Troika.
It could be called "tough love" or it could be described as the rape of entire countries (earlier commentary elsewhere with respect to last summer described Greece as the victim of waterboarding).
No country will be permitted to declare bankruptcy at present; each must stay within the Euro zone, no matter what it costs their respective populations.
Italy is currently in trouble with its' banks and capital is departing; this can be done via use of the Euro which can be "manipulated" to convert Italian bonds into, say, German bonds - in effect, there really are 28 Euro currencies of the 28 nations despite the perceptions of the general public.

Footnote:
This is a very good reason to get out of Italian bank bonds --
http://ellenbrown.com/2015/12/29/a-c...ail-ins-begin/


For sure: see the brief description above for why the Euro is a sham unless it applies to a single, unified nation with a common fiscal, monetary and legal system, as a minimum.

What struck me about the wiki articles in my last post was how "those guys" never give up on their ideas and plans for hegemony across Europe.
They just keep coming back.

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Dave

http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...european-union

Interesting article from George Monbiot on the eu.

I had not heard of "Glass-Steagall" and their act, so I did some reading and find that it applies to the USA, or it did.
Ellen Brown writes about it (she is in my earlier link of 3 days ago).
Our equivalent, as far as I can tell, is this:-
Research Briefings - The Independent Commission on Banking: The Vickers Report & the Parliamentary Commission on banking standards
The lead "guy" in this is interviewed on UK news on occasions. He talks a lot of sense.

In any case, there isn't a great deal of depth to the economic points made in this thread which is OK by me because the fundamentals are over there, on another side of the HUBB pub:-
On balance, I am inclined to think that we have more chance of reforming our banking system, and much else besides, outside of the nightmare that the EU has become.
This guy thinks differently, but he didn't last long when he came up against the raw power of the central European powers:
The EU no longer serves the people – democracy demands a new beginning | Yanis Varoufakis | Opinion | The Guardian

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Dave