Few interesting points here. The ECHR was created in the 50s by the council of Europe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Court_of_Human_Rights

Way before the EU!

What changed in the UK was that Tony Blair made it law so that anyone separated from his cat can go to the ECHR to get “justice” and compensation.
As the legal system is vastly different in the UK compared with say, France, it causes a hell of a problem in the UK. For example the notion of compensation and shark Lawyers are still rare in France, and AFAIK once expelled from France, you can only appeal once you are back in your country (and I presume at your own cost instead of tax payer cost?). So for the Euro and Europe to work, we would not only need a fiscal a but also legal convergence across the board . It won’t happen.

Ted, I am foreigner too (been in the UK for 19 years!) but even if UK is out of the EU, I don’t expect that any (non-British) resident can be booted out. If they did, the education system , the NHS and any sort of knowledge based industry would collapse!

Not really sure what would be best. I don’t think it would be financial Armageddon. We import a hell a lot of goods (and talent!) from Europe. They need us as much as we need Europe. Remember that many years ago, we were told we would face cataclysm if we did not join the Euro. IF we had, we would be Greece or worse by now.

To be fair I think the debate of Brexit may become irrelevant by the time the referendum comes. The refugee crisis may push the EU apart, and like all previous Europeans “Empires” from the Holy Roman Empire of the middle ages to most recent ones, it just may fall into irrelevance.

And then, as has been discussed by some, a much bigger storm may be in the horizon. The financial world situation is incredibly complex and fragile. The problems that caused the crisis in 2008 (huge global debt) that was judged to be a liquidity problem (Keynesian approach) but I believe is a solvency problem (I am more of the Von Mises school of thoughts) will eventually blow up again. Except this time central bankers won’t have any more tools to deal with it. Only in the UK private debt is through the roof. Mortgage debt is near 1.25 trillion.

And let’s not talk about Government debt at over 1.5 trillion and counting, not including Off the balance sheet liabilities, so that would probably least to 3 trillion? …

Imagine what would happen if the housing market crashed by even 10%? That would be a lots of write off for the banks.


They would go bust. Now there would be no more Bail Out. After the Cyprus experiment, US, EU and the UK, among others, quietly made sure that Bail Ins can be done. And if you expect that your 100,000 Euro government guarantee will work for your savings/pension fund etc… think again. http://www.globalresearch.ca/financial-meltdown-and-the-confiscation-of-bank-savings-the-uk-eu-bank-depositor-bail-in-scheme/5475934

Sadly for the last 35 years, Governments around the world have been kicking the can down the road hoping problems would go away and artificial low rates combined with an exponential explosion on debt have led to this situation. They have probably based their premises on “Ivory tower” Economists testing their theories. Economy is not called the “abysmal science” for nothing! There are no easy answers to all those problems. Soon or later we will have to take the Pain.

True, within the UK, one is innocent until proven guilty, although even this principle has been whittled away in some respects.

Under the Napoleonic code of justice it is necessary to prove your innocence, which is a reason why the continental decrees do not always fit well with UK law.

We live in interesting times.

Does it keep being like that (i.e. innocent till proven guilty) even in tax affairs?

I ask because in several countries in Europe (Portugal or Spain for instance) in several particular things the rule is reversed, this being, the rulling of the tax office prevails unless the tax payer is able to show that the tax office assessment is wrong. This being, the burden of proof lies with the tax payer, not with the administration.

When it comes to paying taxes, I suspect that the UK follows the European model regarding the burden of proof issue.
At least we have moved along a tad from the "Sheriff of Nottingham" approach to imposition of taxation.

HMRC has quite draconian powers but are often challenged to the effect that they only apply these powers to the general public while reaching "cosy" deals with mult-national corporations.
I think that nowadays there are various routes for appeal but whether those routes get as far as a court of law I wouldn't know.

A somewhat related matter is that of the cashless society.
Stockholm, for example, is well on the way to this status.

The concept is basically that all transactions would be electronic and, thereby, can be traced and taxed as required.
It would also be very effective in the case of the bail ins described in the previous link.

That is being attempted in several countries although under disguise. I find it the biggest attack on personal freedom that we are suffering these days. Biggest and by far! It dwarfs all that stuff about communications being saved and emails and phone calls being listened to and all that tech mambo-jambo. As a matter of fact it's a mix of insult with outrage. However nobody really seems to care about it.

To follow up on the "5 Presidents", I did think that an organisation that needs 5 such posts has questions to answer on that alone.

Only one of them has a role solely related to the Euro and it's zone - Draghi of the Euro central bank.

The other 4 (one of whom has no formal existance hence the inverted commas throughout) have roles across the whole of the EU but spend most of their time and energy speaking up for Euro zone issues alone.

I absolutely agree. In a cashless society, 'they' have complete and ultimate control over nearly all aspects of your life. When this happens, the government will be able to track every transaction, which should send shivers down the spines of most people. The death of cash will kill a lot of small businesses - in short, supreme centralised power!

:eek3:

You only need to look at what happened in Cyprus to see why a cashless society, where people have to keep money in a bank account, would appeal to the authorities in highly-indebted countries in particular.

I re-call reading about an online ".gov" petition against all this nonsense. I'll try and track it down.

Unfortunately we do not have stairs leading to the cells in general :) lmao


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Hmm. I was in Stockholm about six weeks ago and didn't notice it being any less cash happy than anywhere else. Most of the numerous refugee street beggars seemed to be quite happy with it.

It is an issue though and it was a factor in my reluctant conversion to the card world when they started becoming widespread 20/30 yrs ago. Those with long memories for trivia may remember the 80's American Express slogan that went "American Express says more about you than cash ever could", complete with jet set alpha male waving his little green card as he walks into some futuristic hotel lobby. Shortly afterwards the cynics version was doing the rounds - "Cash says less about you than American Express ever could"

Back then though there might have been some fear but there was little technology. Now I suspect it's only fear of voter backlash fuelled by media outrage over privacy that stops a lot of this stuff being done. The reality however is that these days no matter how much cash you have stuffed in your pockets there are an increasing number of places where it's useless - there wasn't a single hotel we used in the US last summer that took cash for example.

Can someone give me five reasons why it would be better that we leave? Just the bullet points, not the rhetoric.

Ha - without the rhetoric this would be a very short discussion :rofl:

It seems that many in Britain are failing to look at the present day and the future consequences. Bitterness at things that happened in the past is a dangerous motivation to vote for something which will only affect the future.

I don't believe you should condemn future generations because you're stuck in the past..

It's small minded and selfish..

For all the "small minded and selfish"!
 

Dear Ted, Oooph, highly controversial and designed to make people bite! Here is the first chomp. It’s selfish to want to stay in just so you can cross borders without having to flash your passport at a border crossing. It’s selfish to say “ I can’t be arsed with all this currency changing malarkey”. It’s selfish to say well there goes my cheap and effortless holidays. It’s selfish to say my bird is an (add any euro country you want in this space) and she won’t be able to work here and I won’t be able to live there. (wrong incidentally) It’s selfish to say to say sod job protection and our ability to make our own rules as long as I get to go where I want when I want. Incidentally all things I have heard people say in conversation very recently.


Five reasons why we should leave? 1) Control over our borders and waterways. 2) Reduction in red tape for small businesses. 3) An end to EU quotas on production for our industries. 4) The end of criminals charter, (Human rights act) 5) More say in who we do business with.


I could go on but 5 reasons were all that were asked for. I will probably be pushing up daisies within 20 years so the past does not bother me as much as many think and as for the future I am not going to see a great deal more of it. As for being selfish and small minded? I am trying to think of what I believe to be in the best interests of the majority of our citizens for the future. Where will the kids of our steel workers and shipbuilders work in the future?

I don't think we should leave. But there are a few point's that could be changed.


Immigration.
Benefit's should be paid by the country they have come from. Until they can show five year's worth of taxed employment.


Travel.
There should be across the board a single rate of road tax for all country's. Then ban toll road's.


Corruption.
Country "A" can investigate country "B" if EU money is involved.


Tax.
A standard rate of corporation tax in all EU country.


Traffic accident's
The country the vehicle come's from should pay. Then re claim the money from the insurance company with in there own country.




You want more???
John933