The Eurzone, the land of Milk and

[Suff]

Misery....

Longest ever recession. Well OK the zone has only been going for 14 years, but 1.5 years of that is a very significant recession. Do we hear about this on the UK news? Do we hear how well the UK is doing beside it's millstone??

Spanish church fears serious unrest.

German Euro founder calls for breakaway of southern states.

Markets pricing in catastrophic deflation, by buying German debt for exceptionally low interest rates.

At this time Greece has just recorded another Quarterly drop In GDP of over 5%. That's more than 20% GDP drop in one year if sustained. It would be the biggest drop in gdp since the crisis began. The IMF and the ECB have based ALL their calculations for bolstering the Greek finances on a modest recovery in GDP this year.

The Greek economy is, fundamentally, now working. It can pay for itself and even produces a small surplus. The only thing it can't do is repay it's debt. That debt is owed to The IMF, ECB and EU banks. When Greece finally fails, the most seriously hit will be the ECB and the EU banks. This simply does not make sense.

Over and above all of this, the analysts are citing a major deflationary spiral last seen in Japan in the mid 90's, which continues to this day.

THIS is the EU that Cameron wants us to bind ourselves to ever more closely. A rabble of states playing at power politics and papering over the cracks every time someone shouts "The king is NAKED".

I Decline.

[Workingman]

And yet, despite all the doom-monger predictions, it continues to exist.

The markets want it to exist, The economies within it want it to succeed, even those who are suffering hardship because of it. It is not going away. Economies outside of the Eurozone are also suffering from the Global depression, even those outside Europe.

What if we worked with it rather than attempting to trash it at every opportunity?

[Suff]

As each day goes by, the pundits become clearer and clearer about what the fringe analysts were saying 4 years ago. The PIIGS need to devalue, they cannot devalue within the Euro. The people will never accept 50 years of devaluation by austerity, inflation, loss of wages, jobs and standards of living.

Spain devalued in the 90's, not the 60's. They never reformed, they just kept on doing what they have always done. This has to lead to pain they are not willing to accept. 65% youth unemployment. People forget, youth are Voters.

This cannot go on more than another 5 years. Eventually people will stop blaming Merkel for protecting Germany and start blaming their own politicians for not exiting the Euro earlier. All they need is for the press to tell them the truth.

Germany simply does not want the Euro to collapse to a smaller basis. if the Euro loses 50% of it's currency base because of exits, then Germany and France lose 50% of their market manipulation ability. Which, in turn, will heavily impact their economies. especially Germany who will not be able to trade in the same range with other countries. It will put Germany on a similar footing as the UK in terms of Export trade and, let's face it, the UK is better at that work than Germany. Otherwise we would have suffered immediately the Euro came into being.

Let us be clear here. The DM never had a trading name. it was $-Sterling and $-Yen. $-DM was a sideline. Germany rabidly does not want to go back there and will push any pain they can get away with onto other nations in the Euro to keep it. France was of similar mould as the FF had even less purchase in the markets than the DM. Until the wheels came off the wagon and Hollande saw the desperate actions Sarko was taking to try and save the economy and the fact that he had no leeway to borrow money to do his "social" reforms without devaluation.

There is no point in getting behind the Euro. Fort the southern states it's broken beyond repair. They are just in denial. They think the golden decade of Euro stability will come back if they just hang on long enough. What they need to realise is that their credit card is maxed, they can only get new cards to pay the interest on old cards, not to get the money to live. They have a stark choice. Become insolvent, take the pain and move on. Or take the loan, stop spending, go on a credit plan mandated by the EU and the IMF and, eventually, they will get out of the other side. The problem with option 2 is they are all lying to the voters and they have a vote. The more they lie, the more extreme the voters will vote. This is what happened in Germany in 1936. It appears that Politicians never learn anything.... And neither, apparently, do the voters.

[cromwell]

Longest ever recession. Well OK the zone has only been going for 14 years, but 1.5 years of that is a very significant recession. Do we hear about this on the UK news? Do we hear how well the UK is doing beside it's millstone??

No Suff, we don't. The BBC is institutionally biased against the Tory party. (Btw, I've only ever voted Conservative once in my life).
Any story they can run which makes the Conservatives look bad, they will run as a lead story on BBC News. Remember the "plebgate" row? That led BBC news for three days!
The BBC is also massively pro-EU and will try it's damnedest to downplay any bad news; there has been a lot more riots, fighting and burning of EU flags over the last 12 months than has ever been shown on the Beeb; a lot more pictures of Angela Merkel caricatured as Hitler than ever the Beeb have shown.
The BBC's political coverage isn't news, it's propaganda.

[Workingman]

Oh God, please, please let us have the bloody referendum! Let the debate be skewed by the faery stories and myths and legends of the Europhiles. Then, once we are out and things go TU, as they will, we can still blame the EU for all our woes because it wouldn't play cricket with us.

I am getting too old to care any more, and my children are well enough educated to make their lives anywhere they wish. Good luck to them, from what they say I suspect that the UK will not be their domicile of choice.

[Suff]

It's not just the BBC. It is the majority of the press and on air broadcast media in the UK.

I didn't think they got that much out of the EU that they needed to functionally lie about it...

The EU is what it is and lying by omission is not going to help things. The only thing these people can gain by trying to hide the truth is to make people believe there is more to the story then there really is.

[cromwell]

Oh God, please, please let us have the bloody referendum! Let the debate be skewed by the faery stories and myths and legends of the Europhiles. Then, once we are out and things go TU, as they will, we can still blame the EU for all our woes because it wouldn't play cricket with us.

I have to differ. Being pessimistic my most likely scenario is - absolute propaganda campaign for six months for pro-EU views by all broadcast media, plus most of the print media, plus every mainstream political party. Narrow win to stay in the EU followed, a fortnight later, by the resumption of moaning about the EU.

[Suff]

I have to differ. Being pessimistic my most likely scenario is - absolute propaganda campaign for six months for pro-EU views by all broadcast media, plus most of the print media, plus every mainstream political party. Narrow win to stay in the EU followed, a fortnight later, by the resumption of moaning about the EU.

You're talking 1975 here. I think social media will have a bigger say in things than that. The big LIE will not be so easy to sell. Let's face it, FaceBook had a LOT to do with Obama being elected.

Should that happen, then people who don't believe the press will turn to other avenues to get their news. That would be a healthy thing.

[Workingman]

I think social media will have a bigger say in things than that.....

Me too!

The TwitBook generation will decide the outcome, but it will not be based on debate. It will be based on rantings and opinions with nothing to back them up except the thumbs-up/down ratings. Healthy? I think not.

[Suff]

The TwitBook generation will decide the outcome, but it will not be based on debate. It will be based on rantings and opinions with nothing to back them up except the thumbs-up/down ratings. Healthy? I think not.

This is very true as we both know. A lot of FUD out there. But a lot of skeletons people would like to stay buried and a lot of truth which never sees the light of day too.

In the end the loudest voice will win on the day and that might not be the Government or the BBC People are much more aware of manipulation thant they were in 1975. Although they are much more insular too. It will be an interesting thing to see which one wins.