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View Poll Results: Should Britain leave the E.U. ?
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Yes
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109 |
50.00% |
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No
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46 |
21.10% |
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No.. But things MUST change
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38 |
17.43% |
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I don't care
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14 |
6.42% |
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Undecided
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11 |
5.05% |
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20 Jan 2016
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Lonerider
I can agree with you there Tim. I don't think any country in the EU should be ruled by anyone else, but I do think we could still be a strong working EU without it
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As was written earlier, the clue lies in the U of the EU.
The U was not visible in the previous EEC but now it is exposed for all to see.
Just to throw in a wider set of factors, on a longer timescale:
Russia/Putin would be welcoming to a weaker Europe, in general, and a reduction of the "will" of the European continent in particular.
Longer term, if Putin (who is here to stay, unlike, say, Obama who disappears in 12 months) can detect a sufficiently disunited Europe he may see good sense in some form of bilateral alliance between Germany and Russia, for trade alone.
China has ideas about constructing a new "silk route" to increase trade.
Such a new land based route would probably
- avoid the sealanes altogether
- terminate in Europe, likely with Germany as a terminus
- pass via Moscow
- be a rail link rather than a highway
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20 Jan 2016
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The franglais-riders
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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.
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20 Jan 2016
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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.
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20 Jan 2016
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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.
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20 Jan 2016
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Plooking
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.
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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.
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20 Jan 2016
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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.
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20 Jan 2016
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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.
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21 Jan 2016
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Walkabout
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.
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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.
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1 Feb 2016
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Taxation is the least of it - see Common Law
Quote:
Originally Posted by Walkabout
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.
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I've been reading into this further and came upon a very fundamental, if not controversial, view.
It is a long article and an abstract is below, which gives a feel for the myriad of issues contained in the article itself.
"Just to clarify the situation, breaches of The Law are dealt with in a genuine court with a jury. All other matters, such as taxation, bank loans, parking restrictions, speed limits, and the like, are dealt with in a fake "court" which is a commercial company and part of a violent protection racket style scam which is wholly unlawful, but enforced by violence, threats and intimidation using bailiffs and police to protect the bailiffs from being attacked."
Abstracted from (and toward the end of the article):
http://www.yourstrawman.com/
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1 Feb 2016
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Legal or Lawful?
For some kind of "completeness", it was this blog posting that led me to consider more about the issue of the law.
https://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2016/01...in-your-ear-2/
I believe the majority of the worlds lawyers practice in the USA, although some dispute this statistic.
In any case, practice probably does make for perfection.
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5 Feb 2016
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Corpus Juris
Quote:
Originally Posted by Walkabout
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.
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Looking around the internet for more information about the aspect of UK versus continental law, I came upon this article.
2016 – 006 EU replacing English Common Law with repressive Corpus Juris | The Euro Probe
The law in the USA is broadly based on the same principles as the UK, unsurprisingly, being traced back to Magna Carta.
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4 Mar 2016
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Solvency Vs Liquidity
The thread has been running for only about 6 weeks and it has drawn upon some excellent input to the debate, in many cases well ahead of the MSM.
As for the Lord King article, following the links in the website bring out more abstracts from his book, such as
Lord Mervyn King: why throwing money at financial panic will lead us into a new crisis
That particular link reminds me immediately of a post from January in here which remains the best single contribution to this thread to date IMO, in that it summarises so many of the issues that are facing us (all we need now are some feasible solutions):-
Quote:
Originally Posted by maria41
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.
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