Euros

[Pekka]

GePap, EXACTLY! It is just a concept, not a real thing. It is just utopia, and it won't work! So, Europe is just appearing to be all that, but in reality it is not!

[Velociryx]

Imran!

-=Vel=-

[GePap]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

No. Specially Eastern Europeans.

Racist.

Yes, for that very reaosn we can;t let them in. No good racist Eastern europeans!

[Drake Tungsten]

Drake: The preferred PC term for 'racist' is now 'Boddingtons'. Please adjust your vocabulary to take consonance with these recent changes.

Correction noted. My apologies.

[Velociryx]

What we *really* need is for Roland to come in and tell us how the EU is really a "country" but the US isn't....

-=Vel=-

[GePap]

Originally posted by Pekka
GePap, EXACTLY! It is just a concept, not a real thing. It is just utopia, and it won't work! So, Europe is just appearing to be all that, but in reality it is not!

No, Europe is a concept. Being a concept it is a "real" thing. At one point Finland was a concept, as was the Czech Republic, and so many other states. That they were once only concepts did not stop them, once enough people believed in them, from becoming more than concepts.

[Nubclear]

Ze euuurrooo peeeaaannnn yooonniiuuunn eeeezzz nnnoooozzziiinnngggg mooorrreee zzzaaannn eeeecccoooonnnoooommmiiiikkkllllyyyy deeeveeesteeteed kooonnnttrreeeeezzzz ccccrrrreeeettttiiiinnnggg a zzzzhhhhuuuunnnniiiiooooonnnnn. zzzzeeeeyyy arrrrr oooooolld!
zzzzzeeeeeyyyyy sssshhhhuuulllddd jjjuuuuiiiiinnnn zzzzeeee eeeecunooomoooc zzzzuuuuppppeeerrr aaalllliiiiaaannnzzzz oooofffff llliiiittttuuuuuania, eeeestoneeeeaa, llllaaaattttiiiivvviiiiaaaa, aaaannnnndddd bbbbyyyyllllleeeerrroooosssssssiiiiyyyyaaaa.

[Imran Siddiqui]

At one point Finland was a concept

.. and it should have stopped there

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by Velociryx
Further, Pekka's point about inequality rings very true. The major players of the game are France and Germany, and the leaders of those two nations strut around like the **** of the block. That will get tiresome after a time to the "lesser members"--who collectively, out number the "greater members" by an impressive margin. Further, the formerly mismanaged economies will be growing by leaps and bounds once fully integrated into the system as it stands, and as their economic clout increases, so too will their desire for a stronger voice, which will, no doubt, be seen as a direct threat.

Please explain how the "major players" in the EU are opressing the poor small countries (and those poor underdogs still don´t even dare to go out of the EU). And I don´t speak of the new members here - how does Germany eg. opress Luxembourg? Or Portugal?

The EU is an institutional system just to avoid that simple power politics takes over. Sure it still plays a role, but not at all in the way you describe it.

[Drake Tungsten]

.. and it should have stopped there

You can't stop pure evil; you can only hope to contain it.

[Sandman]

I'd prefer to hear the opinions of other Finns, and see if they agree that they're so hard done by Europe.

With your talk of unity, equality, power, victory, you make it sound like the EU is meant to be some sort of *monstrous* Orwellian Borg-like collective.

Disagreement is good. It's healthy. It's why we have free speech.

First of all, Finland has a small popualtion. So do many other EU countries. But the smaller countries make up almost half of the EU population. With the expansion, they'll make up most of the EU.

I think you are overreacting to an absolutely ludicrous degree when you say that because a handful of people you've met don't know exactly where Finland is, that it is somehow 'unequal'. Do you know where every town is in Finland? Are the towns you don't know about somehow less than equal? Because the principle is exactly the same.

When last I heard, the so-called "common currency" was simply being overlaid across the top of each country's "regular" currency. So yes, there is a common means of intrastate economic transfers, but each nation is still carrying the expense of minting its own coin for local use, each little state (and the bigger ones too) is so wrapped up in preserving its cultural heritage and claiming that every blessed little thing (yep, right down to continuing with their own currency) contributes to that culture.

This paragraph is startlingly wrong. The national currencies of the eurozone countries were phased out.

[Pekka]

GePap, but that's what TRUE EUROS do. All they do is believe. But sometimes that's just not enough.
You know, like communism. Good idea in theory maybe, but didn't work in reality. Good in paper, bad in real life.

[Nubclear]

Originally posted by Pekka
GePap, but that's what TRUE EUROS do. All they do is believe. But sometimes that's just not enough.
You know, like communism. Good idea in theory maybe, but didn't work in reality. Good in paper, bad in real life.

hhhhheeeeeeelllllllsssssseeeeeeeennnnnnnkkkkkkkkee eeeeee, rrrrrrrrruuuuuuuuusssssssssssseeeeeeeeeeeyaaaaaaa!

[GePap]

INterestingly enough, one of the issue of the EU is that the little states have so much power. 6 countries make up 70% of the EU's people, Germany, France, UK, Italy, Poland, Spain. Yet they are on equal footing to much smaller states that can as a block stop this or that. No, the current EU mechanism does not allow the big state to run over the small ones, and the Eastern Europeans stand top gain by allying themselves with the French in fighting for big agricultural subsidies vs the Germans and UK.

[Velociryx]

The established players and prominent member states have set strict financial guidelines, including interest rate caps, deficit spending caps, and the like that apply to all member states. These caps (which even some of the established member states--France and Germany--have difficulty meeting are quite harsh to newly rebuilding economies, as they limit the power of these fledgling, recovering states to inject their economies (ie - the US spent her way out of the great depression via deficit government spending....such a remedy would be in violation of EU monetary policy, and thus, not an option for an EU hopeful). Further, by virtue of the strengths of their economies, relative to the smaller economies that make up the EU, we see the potential for bulldogging....the countries with the bigger economies will get their way....and of course, there's a built in incentive to help your own, so, if it's at the expense of the little guy....well, maybe he just missed another good opportunity to shut up....

-=Vel=-