| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15] > | Off topic: How do you think UK leaving EU would affect our profession? Thread poster: Balasubramaniam L.
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| Germans were forced into the Euro | Jun 21, 2016 |
Thomas T. Frost wrote:
But what makes Germany think it is in a position to tell the rest of Europe what to do? Why is what Germany wants "right", and what the UK and the Nordic countries want "wrong"? I have great respect for Germany and Germans, just as for the UK and Britons, but I would have even more respect for Germany if its leaders learned some humility instead of incessantly trying to enforce their will upon everybody else.
The EU was not intended to be dominated by one or a few countries. In principle, all Member States are equal. But Germany and France presume they have an automatic hegemony as leading EU Member States. I've never voted for that, and I resent that feeling of supremacy.
The UK and Denmark were 'sold' a common market when their voters approved it in 1971, not a supranational government. So I think people have every right to complain when the project is moving along in an unwanted direction. It is fully legitimate in a democracy to criticise politics we disagree with.
Germans were forced into the Euro because they wanted reunification. They were forced by France, which hated the fact that monetary policy for all European currencies was made de facto by the German Bundesbank, in which it had no seat. And Germans were "sold" the Euro, which they never wanted in the first place, with the argument that their new currency would be as strong as their old one, the German Deutsche Mark. The strength of the currency was to be preserved by keeping the budget deficit under 3 per cent and the overall debt under 60 per cent of the GDP. That is the reason why Germans feel cheated now because Greece and other countries are violating these rules all the time. In my view, it was a big mistake to introduce the Euro, because a monetary union cannot work without a political union. And as nobody seems to want a political union, the monetary union is doomed to fail. The UK and Denmark were right in not taking part in this nonsense. But as the UK is not in the Eurozone, British citizens do not have to bear the burden of financing budget deficits of foreign countries. For them the EU is a mere free trade area. I hope that British voters are aware of that when they go to the polls.
[Edited at 2016-06-21 18:47 GMT]
| | | | Dan Lucas 
United Kingdom
Local time: 07:08
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
| Voting for what the future holds, not the past | Jun 21, 2016 |
Maria S. Loose, LL.M. wrote:
British citizens do not have to bear the burden of financing budget deficits of foreign countries. For them the EU is a mere free trade area. I hope that British voters are aware of that when they go to the polls.
I acknowledge your point Maria but, as you observe and as many others have observed, the euro is doomed to failure over the long term without political union. Yet, despite lacking any evidence or historical precedent for a successful, large-scale monetary union, France and other euro supporters convinced the others to go ahead without political union anyway.
The lesson I take from the euro experience is that the nations of the EU can be collectively persuaded or bullied into implementing laws and systems that are not in their best interests, that are unworkable and that bring only sorrow. Common sense just doesn't seem to kick in.
What if something like this happens again? What if one country or a small group of countries cajoles, chivvies or threatens other countries into implementing something as unworkable as the euro, but that involves the UK as well? It could happen. Nobody credible would have forecast in 1973 that a half-baked currency union would be implemented, but the euro exists today.
I think Brexiters have every justification to be wary of what the future might bring from the EU.
Regards
Dan
| | | | | It's early days | Jun 22, 2016 |
I am surprised so many people already judge the Union and the euro to have failed, while the Union was only formed in 1992, less than 25 years ago, and the euro's only been around for 16 years or so. I can well imagine why you might need at least half a century to get something like this up and running reasonably adequately, whatever you may have promised your voters. So as far as building an efficient and fair system goes, we're only halfway there.
Olly
| | | | DZiW (X)
Ukraine
English to Russian
+ ...
| Why eating the whole egg up to prove it was all rotten down? | Jun 22, 2016 |
UKIP and Co say the GB has been muted about EU since 1975, now they want to be heard. As far as the country gives to EU far more than it gets--still calling shots, it's neither economically nor politically wise. Considering EU has changed drastically (not for the better), it's hight time the GB got its voice loud.
Brexit, Grexit, Frexit, Gexit... Euexit.
Is there any specific reason why they so afraid to hear people??
Ok, some biz (including translators/interprete... See more UKIP and Co say the GB has been muted about EU since 1975, now they want to be heard. As far as the country gives to EU far more than it gets--still calling shots, it's neither economically nor politically wise. Considering EU has changed drastically (not for the better), it's hight time the GB got its voice loud.
Brexit, Grexit, Frexit, Gexit... Euexit.
Is there any specific reason why they so afraid to hear people??
Ok, some biz (including translators/interpreters) with the GB might suffer for awhile--till the GB signs an agreement with EU, but it's not really an issue versus the country realization and development. ▲ Collapse
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Huw Watkins
United Kingdom
Local time: 07:08
Member (2005)
Italian to English
+ ...
| Some of us actually like being in the EU | Jun 22, 2016 |
DZiW wrote:
UKIP and Co say the GB has been muted about EU since 1975, now they want to be heard. As far as the country gives to EU far more than it gets--still calling shots, it's neither economically nor politically wise. Considering EU has changed drastically (not for the better), it's hight time the GB got its voice loud.
Brexit, Grexit, Frexit, Gexit... Euexit.
Is there any specific reason why they so afraid to hear people??
Ok, some biz (including translators/interpreters) with the GB might suffer for awhile--till the GB signs an agreement with EU, but it's not really an issue versus the country realization and development.
UKIP and Co certainly do not represent the majority of the country. In fact the country is very divided on its opinion of the EU. The fact remains though that not all of us view it through the lens of a conspiracy theorist clamouring for revolution and change. Many of us simply see it as good economic sense and realise that UK has a lot of say in what happens and don't mind the trade-offs in exchange.
I, for one, think it has done some marvellous work on many fronts. The fact of ever closer political union is not something that appeals particularly, but thankfully we have secured an exemption from that.
| | | | | Because the euro cannot work without political union | Jun 22, 2016 |
Olly Pekelharing wrote:
I am surprised so many people already judge the Union and the euro to have failed, while the Union was only formed in 1992, less than 25 years ago, and the euro's only been around for 16 years or so. I can well imagine why you might need at least half a century to get something like this up and running reasonably adequately, whatever you may have promised your voters. So as far as building an efficient and fair system goes, we're only halfway there.
So if one person in a household keeps spending too much money with the result that the couple have to keep defaulting on loans, have their cars and household items bought on credit repossessed, no longer have enough money to buy food, and after 15 years like that the bank is threatening to take the house, then the wise option is to keep doing the same for another 15 years to see if it works?
Only halfway there, you may say. Yes, but halfway to complete ruin. Nothing has been fixed in the euro, only postponed. The internal imbalances keep building up as a spring being pressed harder and harder together.
The euro is structurally flawed. You need one central, political government to run a currency. That is, by the way, the real purpose of the euro: to force such a union upon us. It is all explained in The Rotten Heart of Europe by Bernard Connolly, published in 1995. He was working with the European Commission, where he was head of the unit responsible for the European Monetary System and monetary policies. While at the Commission he was a Member of the Monetary Policy and Foreign Exchange Policy sub-committees of the Committee of Central bank Governors and was on the OECD Group of High-Level Monetary Experts. The Commission sacked him as a result of publishing the book, as criticism is seen as treason by the EU.
As for getting a Single Market to work, that does take time, but efforts to complete that have stalled: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/06/10/eu-single-market-integration-stalls-as-countries-fail-to-ditch-r/ . A well-functioning single market is what we really need, but we’re not getting that. Focus is a political union, and France keeps saying no to more competition across borders. "Always complaining", one should perhaps say.
Maria S. Loose, LL.M. wrote:
Germans were forced into the Euro because they wanted reunification. They were forced by France, which hated the fact that monetary policy for all European currencies was made de facto by the German Bundesbank, in which it had no seat. And Germans were "sold" the Euro, which they never wanted in the first place, with the argument that their new currency would be as strong as their old one, the German Deutsche Mark. The strength of the currency was to be preserved by keeping the budget deficit under 3 per cent and the overall debt under 60 per cent of the GDP. That is the reason why Germans feel cheated now because Greece and other countries are violating these rules all the time. In my view, it was a big mistake to introduce the Euro, because a monetary union cannot work without a political union. And as nobody seems to want a political union, the monetary union is doomed to fail. The UK and Denmark were right in not taking part in this nonsense. But as the UK is not in the Eurozone, British citizens do not have to bear the burden of financing budget deficits of foreign countries. For them the EU is a mere free trade area. I hope that British voters are aware of that when they go to the polls.
I entirely agree. By the way, I already mentioned that Germany was forced into the euro by France, so my comments did not apply to the euro. But Germany is a keen ‘more Europe’ member. ‘More Europe’ is dogmatic in Germany among all parties except AfD. If they had a government worthy of its name, they could simply leave the euro, as it won’t become any easier by waiting until it falls even more apart. But the German government’s dilemma is they have promised their people that German money would not be given to other countries. In theory, no money has been given, but in reality, it is unlikely that Germany is ever going to recover all the bailouts and the huge internal Target 2 credit in its favour, so they keep up the make-believe, being too cowardly to admit their failures.
Germans weren’t ‘sold’ the euro. They weren’t asked. To be sure they cannot be asked, referendums are illegal; a relic from Germany’s past that has no justification in a modern democracy.
The idea was to tie Germany into the EU to prevent more wars, but if some new dictator were to obtain power, I don’t see how exactly the EU should have any power to prevent war. Of course, Germans don’t want more wars, so their leaders seem to think it is their moral obligation to keep tying Germany more and more into the EU. The intention is good, but the result of that obsession is that Germany is once again seen by many as dictating to the rest of Europe what to do – exactly what they wanted to avoid. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
| | | | | very naive to think... | Jun 22, 2016 |
it won't have any economical impact on the UK if the out vote wins... the UK will be in a much weaker bargaining position and the new agreements can take up to 10 years to be finalised... the markets don't like instability... my opinion is that the UK will have another major recession, with all the financial implications... and the pound will be greatly devalued...
| | | | Balasubramaniam L.
India
Local time: 11:38
Member (2006)
English to Hindi
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER SITE LOCALIZER | The markets... | Jun 22, 2016 |
Giovanni Guarnieri MITI, MIL wrote:
... the markets don't like instability... my opinion is that the UK will have another major recession, with all the financial implications... and the pound will be greatly devalued...
The markets are an important factor. I read somewhere that the major investors are sitting on a huge pile of cash and are waiting to see which way the vote goes. They might divert much of the money to emerging markets (which themselves are currently undergoing trouble) if leave wins and throws the EU and the UK into financial turmoil, and all this money sloshing in and out of economies could spread huge devastation, and as you say, trigger major recessions around the globe. That would certainly affect our profession. However, it is extremely difficult to predict the market, especially for non-market players like us translators (well, most of us).
Today, the Indian stock market lost about half a percent, which is not much. It could be a signal that the Indian share brokers don't see much of an issue with the vote panning out either way. But the Indian markets could also be reacting to other signals , such as the impending exit of the RBI governor, or a monsoon that is not picking up well enough after 3 straight years of drought.
[Edited at 2016-06-22 13:10 GMT]
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Huw Watkins
United Kingdom
Local time: 07:08
Member (2005)
Italian to English
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| | The FT agree with whom? Themselves? | Jun 22, 2016 |
The first chart compares the British growth before EU membership and now. The British economy was in a rather miserable state back then. As the article itself says: "This does not prove that becoming a member improved Britain’s international performance. … Economists from the Leave side would point out that the absolute growth rates were lower after 1973 than before and that the main reason for Britain’s improved performance was Margaret Thatcher’s reforms, not EU membership."
It proves that the British economy has improved while being a member of the EU but not that it is because of the EU, since no causal conjunction has been established.
In fact, the article does not provide a single proof that EU membership has been beneficial for the UK.
But the Leave camp would say this is not about some economic projections or other figures but about whether or not the British want to be part of the political mammoth the EU is evolving into.
| | | | Dan Lucas
United Kingdom
Local time: 07:08
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
| Aren't we being a touch naiive? | Jun 22, 2016 |
Huw Watkins wrote:
Not only that, it has provided some very interesting figures on how EU membership has actually been extremely beneficial for the UK.
Yes, the FT has been pro-EU from the start. However, as befits probably the most thoughtful newspaper operating in the UK, it does at least offer the "alternative view" from the Leave perspective, so there's no need for me to refute the arguments here (though the FT skilfully omits some important arguments for Leave).
In any case the FT concludes, as expected, that the Brexit argument is rubbish, because blah blah uncertainty blah blah risk blah blah volatility. I personally find the arguments presented for the Leave camp in that article more sensible than the "Gosh, look what the EU has done for us!" parts but there you go. You pays your money and you takes your choice.
However, if the FT were truly concerned about informing its readership, it should probably point out to its readers that it was enthusiastically pro-euro in the late 1990s. Had the UK joined the euro as exhorted by the FT's scribblers back then we'd have been in a world of hurt today. We did not join and the hundreds of economists and heads of companies who publicly prophesied economic doom for the UK outside the euro were proven wrong. Utterly wrong.
Moral: concerned, intelligent, articulate people, and journalists too, have no monopoly on wisdom, clarity, or good judgement. They can be and often are just wrong about important problems, on both left and right.
The euro was and is a great example of a situation where the establishment consensus was not only obviously wrong but has been proven by events to be wrong. It's clear now that the internal tensions caused a non-political monetary union cause more problems than the union itself solves.
Brexit is actually a more difficult and nuanced problem than the euro, the problems of which were clear from the outset. My advice to you is to not to fall for the glamour of pretty charts. I know. I carved out a lucrative career making them.
Dan
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Balasubramaniam L. wrote: Merab Dekano wrote:
I wish EU moved towards US model, but that's impossible. Too many languages, too many cultures, too much "nationalistic" nonsense. The only way to make EU undergo reforms is simply boycott their invasive and unnecessarily abundant legislation. That needs to be done at national government level, down to every single EU citizen. Then they will listen.
That is precisely how Gandhiji and the Indian National Congress fought the imperial British in colonial India. Gandhi urged Indians to ignore and politely disobey the unjust laws of the imperial British, which paralysed the entire British administration, and made India almost ungovernable for the British, who after being much enfeebled by the blood-letting of WWII finally quit India. This movement was called savinay avagya abhiyan (or polite and courteous disobeyal movement). This technique was also picked up Martin Luther King in the US to fight apartheid and racial discrimination by the whites. But you are right on target. If there is any region in the world that Europe with its many languages, nationalities and cultures resembles, it is India, and India has made a success of integrating all this diversity and welding it together into a single nation. If India, much impoverished by two centuries of colonialism and imperialism, could do it, then certainly a much more affluent Europe can do it, too. What Europe lacks are the selfless and stellar leaders who lead India's freedom movement and then steered the nation on a course of consolidation and integration. Europe sadly does not have leaders of that calibre, stature and vision. And who is to blame for this? In democracies you get the leaders you deserve. So somehow and somewhere the shortcoming is in the people of Europe who have become small-minded, cynical and incapable of great visions for themselves and for the entire mankind. There was a time when the world used to follow the path shown by the great minds of Europe, and its great revolutions, sometimes bloody and brutal, threw up values that the entire humanity cherished. Where is that Europe and where are those great European minds? [Edited at 2016-06-19 18:45 GMT]
I am still reading the rest of the forums, but sorry, on this one I have to give an answer.
See where it brought you. A few rich, but still poverty all around. Ghandi might meant well, I am sure he did, but his followers only thought about themselves, and still do. Did really anything change for the man in the street in India in the last 300 or 400 years? You can't compare Gandhi with the EU.
[Edited at 2016-06-22 21:47 GMT]
[Edited at 2016-06-22 21:51 GMT]
[Edited at 2016-06-22 21:52 GMT]
[Edited at 2016-06-22 21:53 GMT]
[Edited at 2016-06-22 22:15 GMT]
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Olly Pekelharing wrote:
I am surprised so many people already judge the Union and the euro to have failed, while the Union was only formed in 1992, less than 25 years ago, and the euro's only been around for 16 years or so. I can well imagine why you might need at least half a century to get something like this up and running reasonably adequately, whatever you may have promised your voters. So as far as building an efficient and fair system goes, we're only halfway there.
Olly
As I read all the threads, I get the feeling that most people are highlighting the shortcomings of the EU, and hardly anyone is talking about what the EU has accomplished. Combining 28 countries (= 28 nationalities, cultures, languages, etc, etc,...) in one big union takes time, perhaps even more time then Olly is suggesting.
I read somewhere that the EU is "crumbling". What would happen if we all went back to our own small economies? Lets take Greece as an example. Today they still receive financial support from Brussels, but what do you think would happen to them when they are left on their own? Do you really think they would be in a better position to compete with economies like those of the US and/or China?
I don't say the EU is perfect, but till sofar, count your blessings.
[Edited at 2016-06-22 21:54 GMT]
[Edited at 2016-06-22 22:17 GMT]
| | | | | Some of us do not want such a union | Jun 22, 2016 |
Robert Rietvelt wrote:
Combining 28 countries (= 28 nationalities, cultures, languages, etc, etc,...) in one big union takes time, perhaps even more time then Olly is suggesting.
Yes, it takes time, but many of us do not want such a big union, or have never been asked, or have had their no votes overruled, or have no voting rights any more because we live outside our native member states.
Implementing a big union without massive, popular support is bound to cause tension. The EU's leaders are 'forgetting' that national sovereignty is vested in the people. They want it to be vested in themselves.
Much the same as if you wanted to implement a 'neighbour union' among people living near each other in a street, gradually giving that union power to decide more and more what people were allowed to do in their own homes, and how to do it, outvoting the minority so they had nothing to say in their own homes. You can start out as good neighbours, but after a while like this, it would blow up in a rage.
Robert Rietvelt wrote:
I read somewhere that the EU is "crumbling". What would happen if we all went back to our own small economies? Lets take Greece as an example. Today they still receive financial support from Brussels, but what do you think would happen to them when they are really left on their own?
Greece is in trouble because of the euro, so it would have been much better off without it. Before the euro, we did not have such problems. If a country behaved irresponsibly by overspending, it could fix its 'hangover' with a devaluation. That was its own problem, not everybody else's, as it is now in the Eurozone. Since a Eurozone member cannot (externally) devalue its way out of overspending, it has to make an internal devaluation, i.e. reduce salaries. That is quite obviously a much more delicate exercise than an external devaluation because of the unrest it causes on the labour market. If that is not done either, the consequences become more dramatic, most notably increasing unemployment and stalled or falling GDP because the exchange rate is too high for such a country to be competitive – which is exactly what has happened, just as predicted 20 years ago.
If the EU had focused on the Four Freedoms in the Single Market without dreaming about an economically illiterate currency that will never work, then the whole thing would have been dramatically different. But our European apparatchiks want a federal union they can rule, and for them, that is more important than anything else. People ruined by the euro can go commit suicide if they want (and sadly some do); what does the EU care? It has become a cynical, inhuman monster that doesn’t give a damn about its peoples.
| | | | | I really don't know if leaving the EU would affect my work | Jun 23, 2016 |
But I never worry about things that are beyond my control.
I'm sure many of you are in the same situation as I am. I'm a British native but because I haven't lived in the UK for over 15 years, I'm no longer allowed to vote. Ok, I accept it but because I haven't changed my nationality, neither can I vote in the country where I live.
I'm sure that if the ex-pats living in Europe were allowed to vote, then Britain would have more chance of remaining.
Here we ... See more But I never worry about things that are beyond my control.
I'm sure many of you are in the same situation as I am. I'm a British native but because I haven't lived in the UK for over 15 years, I'm no longer allowed to vote. Ok, I accept it but because I haven't changed my nationality, neither can I vote in the country where I live.
I'm sure that if the ex-pats living in Europe were allowed to vote, then Britain would have more chance of remaining.
Here we are in the 21st century, but I sometimes feel I live on my own little planet. Every so often I come down to Earth to pay my taxes in Spain though I get the impression that nobody really cares about real people.
Thirty years ago I announced to my friends and family that 'they' wanted to create a United States of Europe but that I had the feeling it wouldn't work out.
We'll see what happens. ▲ Collapse
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