Borg Refinery
Active member
Um, there's a good chance of speedy accession for Ukraine as they have already talked about it though, it's rather feasible, the EU have indicated they WANT to give them speedy accession.
Will Russia's military invasion of Ukraine include a nuclear disaster?
- Thread starter titan
- Start date
I'm not trying to be obtuse here O #21. AHD provides 9 definitions, access or admittance seems to be the one you intended.
The E.U. blundered hideously when they bent their own rules to include Greece among their member nations. Greece simply didn't meet the membership criteria, and the other EU member nations paid the price.
Ukraine might meet the official economic standards. But then why didn't Ukraine join years ago?
I don't know what NATO membership application minimum requirements are. I don't know which non-NATO nations likely to wish to join already meet membership requirements, if any.ess; admittance.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2022 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved. [/b]
The E.U. blundered hideously when they bent their own rules to include Greece among their member nations. Greece simply didn't meet the membership criteria, and the other EU member nations paid the price.
Ukraine might meet the official economic standards. But then why didn't Ukraine join years ago?
I don't know what NATO membership application minimum requirements are. I don't know which non-NATO nations likely to wish to join already meet membership requirements, if any.ess; admittance.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2022 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved. [/b]
Borg Refinery
Active member
And the United States has some problem states, should they never have been allowed to join in the first place? All for one and one for all, that's the thinking here and I agree with it - just because you have some problem states you don't just cast them adrift. You have some strange politics for a progressive.
Should Italy be kicked out because they were a problem too? Portugal? Spain? Ireland?
The only member state I would consider kicking out are states like Poland where the governing party waters down holocaust remembrance and embraces Nazism to some extent, even then sanctions are a better plan.
Oran, your clash may be in conflating the two unions.
You're right of course about the economic diversity among the 50 States of the US union.
Each State has an economy. But it's not chiefly an economic union, more geographic than economic.
The national economy works it out. The cost of living, and the standard of living may be lower in Alabama than in Oregon.
Because the EU is more an economic union than geographic, the economic criteria of membership takes higher precedence.
Sear's example of the Greek debt crisis illustrates, German workers objected to working years longer before retirement, forced to bail out Greek workers retiring years earlier.
Among the US States it doesn't seem as much of an imposition, and may in fact not be.
In the U.S. some States derive more revenue from DC than they pay, typically Republican States.
Democratic States make up the difference, receiving less of the tax money back, then what they send to DC.
You're right of course about the economic diversity among the 50 States of the US union.
Each State has an economy. But it's not chiefly an economic union, more geographic than economic.
The national economy works it out. The cost of living, and the standard of living may be lower in Alabama than in Oregon.
Because the EU is more an economic union than geographic, the economic criteria of membership takes higher precedence.
Sear's example of the Greek debt crisis illustrates, German workers objected to working years longer before retirement, forced to bail out Greek workers retiring years earlier.
Among the US States it doesn't seem as much of an imposition, and may in fact not be.
In the U.S. some States derive more revenue from DC than they pay, typically Republican States.
Democratic States make up the difference, receiving less of the tax money back, then what they send to DC.
Borg Refinery
Active member
Huh? The EU is a social-political union and not just an economic union.
And if you're talking about physical geography then I am baffled - Continental Europe? Are you suggesting that because Greece has many islands it's not as physically connected to the rest of Continental Europe as other countries or something? That is absurd, it is southern European.
The EU is both a geographically-based, social, political AND economic union. Why should Greece be cut adrift? Greece joined the EC in 1981 BTW.
And why isn't it akin to rich blue states like NY or CA paying for red states? And people do resent that even in the USA, I was reading comments by people posting exactly that just the other day.
You regularly also hear Republicans moaning about blue states taking more than their fair share, so it clearly is resented just like some in the EU resent it - but it is what it is.
mark mywords
Active member
The EU is both a geographically-based, social, political AND economic union. Why should Greece be cut adrift? Greece joined the EC in 1981 BTW.
Greece (and several other countries) should never have been allowed to join they didnt meet the conditions at the time and in the case of Greece never managed to achieve the conditions required for entry.
The EU then as now has a soft spot for former dictatorships (see also Romania, Portugal, Spain and Hungary (which never quite became not a dictatorship)
" Greece’s entry was a way to ensure democracy and stability in southern Europe at the height of the cold war.
And it worked. Greece was the model, Spain and Portugal followed, joining in 1986. But Greece was also a warning: levels of corruption were worse than the European average, the state was poor at collecting taxes. Lax public administration was harder to change once a country was inside the EU. Later entrants from central and eastern Europe had to pass stricter standards.
Politics also helped Greece join the euro in 2001. Although it was not until 2004 that Athens admitted entry figures had been fudged, the dodgy numbers were an open secret in Brussels. Many other countries were doing the same, albeit on a smaller scale. Only later when Greece buckled under the weight of its debts did European grandees say it had been “a mistake” to allow Greece to join the currency."
www.theguardian.com
Turkey has been chomping on the bit to win entry into the EU but the EU eventually leant a lesson and Turkey wont get in for the same reasons that neighbouring Greece should have been denied entry.
Greece (and several other countries) should never have been allowed to join they didnt meet the conditions at the time and in the case of Greece never managed to achieve the conditions required for entry.
The EU then as now has a soft spot for former dictatorships (see also Romania, Portugal, Spain and Hungary (which never quite became not a dictatorship)
" Greece’s entry was a way to ensure democracy and stability in southern Europe at the height of the cold war.
And it worked. Greece was the model, Spain and Portugal followed, joining in 1986. But Greece was also a warning: levels of corruption were worse than the European average, the state was poor at collecting taxes. Lax public administration was harder to change once a country was inside the EU. Later entrants from central and eastern Europe had to pass stricter standards.
Politics also helped Greece join the euro in 2001. Although it was not until 2004 that Athens admitted entry figures had been fudged, the dodgy numbers were an open secret in Brussels. Many other countries were doing the same, albeit on a smaller scale. Only later when Greece buckled under the weight of its debts did European grandees say it had been “a mistake” to allow Greece to join the currency."
Greece in Europe: a short history
After throwing off the regime of the colonels and restoring democracy, Greece applied to join the European Community in 1975
www.theguardian.com
Turkey has been chomping on the bit to win entry into the EU but the EU eventually leant a lesson and Turkey wont get in for the same reasons that neighbouring Greece should have been denied entry.
Borg Refinery
Active member
And a part of the point of the EU - is bringing backwards European states up to speed; all for one and one for all. The idea that you leave some states behind is elitist - just like it's elitist in the USA to be pro rich blue states - and to want to cut adrift poor red states.
mark mywords
Active member
UNITED STATES of America is a country, Europe is a continent
Rich US states have duty to support their fellow countrymen in poor states.
Germans have no responsibility to help Greece just because they share a landmass.
Why should the poor people of rich European countries have to help the rich people of poor European countries?
Borg Refinery
Active member
Why aren't they helping the rich and poor of poor Euro countries?
And the EU is meant to be moving towards more integration.
And the EU is meant to be moving towards more integration.
mark mywords
Active member
why should they help them AT ALL?
We (the richer countries in Europe - I think that we can still count UK in that group) have no responsibility for the poor countries - some of who have made and are making little effort to drag them selves up by their own endeavours.
Why should a single penny of my taxes go to Greece (etc)
Unfortunately I could not lay hands on a similar plot on a per capita basis - obviously Poland has a far greater population than Greece (40million vs 10.5 million) and Germany has a far higher population than UK (83 million vs 68 million) so on a per capita basis the figures look even worse
Rampage
Member
Self-flagellating sacrifice is not necessary. Improving trade relations can benefit both parties.
I wasn't sure what you two were driving at. O #25 you sent me to investigate. This is what I found: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:12012P/TXT
Admittedly I hadn't looked that close, but got the impression the E.U. (coincidentally being the initials for economic union) was primarily a framework for a common currency, the Euro. Thus the E.U. being substantially about global trade. When founded, the E.U. was declared a larger economic entity than the U.S., better able to compete in global markets. I knew this involved modifications to pre-E.U. import / export, border crossing rules. I'd never read the doc. The human rights angle while laudable, is news to me. I suspect many Americans don't know that. My thanks O #25 & t #24 for bringing this to my attention. "Live & learn."
The U.K. is geographically not continental Europe either, English Channel & all that. I'm not sure what t #24 means economically. Perhaps it's nothing more than precedent. There's persuasive archeological evidence aboriginal Americans traded over distances of many hundreds of miles. But what expanded American trade was not primarily contractual arrangements between adjacent trade zones, but innovations in commercial freight transportation. The railroad, and the Erie canal come to mind. I believe it was the railroad in America that brought us time zones. Railroads couldn't run a train schedule if it was 4PM coast to coast (a single time zone, late afternoon at one location, and after dark in another). True sun time might work for science, but it creates a virtual infinity of time zones, not practical for rail scheduling. So we got Eastern, Central, Mountain, and Western time zones, a substantial practical benefit to modernization.
Meaning: the U.S. grew, evolved into borderless trade relations. Europe grew, evolved with a hodgepodge of international borders and sovereign currencies. The U.S. was already there. The E.U. had to redesign, revise, to compete.
Is that the the distinction you guys are working on?
Pessimism is it's own reward. Thanks for expressing it in the negative mm.
"One of the pleasures of pessimism is that you're right more often than not, and when you're not you're pleased." George Will
R #31
Kinky.
mark mywords
Active member
Well wasnt that supposed to be what the EU was all about (and Greece STILL went broke)
taking Greece (or Portugal or Belgium or Luxemburg or ........) what has Greece got to sell us that we want or need so badly as to offer them improved trade relations?
I don't have the date, time, & location, but soon after the pneumatic tire began its automotive history, one of them went flat.
They didn't abandon the idea as totally unworkable.
Instead they improved the design, to my mind with spectacular results. "Blow-out" or cat. fail seems to have not been uncommon nearly a century ago. I may have driven a million miles in my life, have gotten a few flat tires, never a blow-out.
As I understand it, please correct:
Greece was non-compliant since before E.U. membership. The membership rules were bent because the deciders deemed membership a priority higher than the eligibility requirements.
In my opinion that was a blunder, but it's over. Lesson learned?
Most of the imports I use from Greece are ancient linguistics. Greek & Latin are a powerful influence on English. But there've been sticky trade wickets before. During the Cold War the Soviet Union had little if anything to offer the West in trade. None the less Stolichnaya became a familiar brand in the West, even though Trabant did not.
And let's not ignore the "split the baby" option here. Even if Greece isn't a perfect fit for 100% E.U. membership / integration, a more gradual exposure should not be ruled out. For example, [I'm not demanding this, I'm citing it as a potential example] why not allow Greece to use the Euro as a currency, but exempt Greece from minimum wage or other E.U. standards the Greek economy can't match at the moment?
They didn't abandon the idea as totally unworkable.
Instead they improved the design, to my mind with spectacular results. "Blow-out" or cat. fail seems to have not been uncommon nearly a century ago. I may have driven a million miles in my life, have gotten a few flat tires, never a blow-out.
As I understand it, please correct:
Greece was non-compliant since before E.U. membership. The membership rules were bent because the deciders deemed membership a priority higher than the eligibility requirements.
In my opinion that was a blunder, but it's over. Lesson learned?
Most of the imports I use from Greece are ancient linguistics. Greek & Latin are a powerful influence on English. But there've been sticky trade wickets before. During the Cold War the Soviet Union had little if anything to offer the West in trade. None the less Stolichnaya became a familiar brand in the West, even though Trabant did not.
And let's not ignore the "split the baby" option here. Even if Greece isn't a perfect fit for 100% E.U. membership / integration, a more gradual exposure should not be ruled out. For example, [I'm not demanding this, I'm citing it as a potential example] why not allow Greece to use the Euro as a currency, but exempt Greece from minimum wage or other E.U. standards the Greek economy can't match at the moment?
mark mywords
Active member
.correct but they joined, they got all the benefits of joining including the beneficial trade deals and billions in aid and they are still broke!
Rampage seems (unless I have misunderstood) to think that better trade deals would solve the Greek problems they have the best of trade terms with the other EU countries
mm #35
Rampage may be our resident military expert.
I may be in the extreme minority here, but I believe macro-economics is more complex than rocket science. Ultimately such economics involves individual (personal) decisions. It's not static. If everyone else buys yams (increasing the price via "supply & demand") Bruce buys rutabagas. So markets alone are incalculably complex within a population of one hundred million purchasers, even though we can statistically approximate them accurately. That's a prediction of populations, not individuals.
I'm pretty sure you and I are on the same page about it mm #35. I consider EU admission of Greece was spectacularly ham-handed. I also suspect EU integration of the Greek economy if done in rational incremental stages, could have been attempted without the trauma. However, even if so, such integration would still be in its earliest stages, and might have taken human generations (many decades) to complete, if ever.
As an economic ignorant noramus my perspective is strongly influenced by those better informed than me.
"We know that protectionism makes the world poorer." George Will Therefore, not "bye bye", but "buy buy".
Rampage may be our resident military expert.
I may be in the extreme minority here, but I believe macro-economics is more complex than rocket science. Ultimately such economics involves individual (personal) decisions. It's not static. If everyone else buys yams (increasing the price via "supply & demand") Bruce buys rutabagas. So markets alone are incalculably complex within a population of one hundred million purchasers, even though we can statistically approximate them accurately. That's a prediction of populations, not individuals.
I'm pretty sure you and I are on the same page about it mm #35. I consider EU admission of Greece was spectacularly ham-handed. I also suspect EU integration of the Greek economy if done in rational incremental stages, could have been attempted without the trauma. However, even if so, such integration would still be in its earliest stages, and might have taken human generations (many decades) to complete, if ever.
As an economic ignorant noramus my perspective is strongly influenced by those better informed than me.
"We know that protectionism makes the world poorer." George Will Therefore, not "bye bye", but "buy buy".
mark mywords
Active member
Interested on how you propose that be done, use the Euro on Monday through Thursday and the Drachma the rest of the week?
Once you are in the Euro zone you have to hand over control of large parts of your economy to the European central bank, this was a major part of Greece's last severe money troubles, any other country in a similar position could have alleviated the problem by devaluing the currency Greece couldnt do that because their currency was the same as the German French and Italian currency and the didnt want to devalue didnt need to devalue and devaluing would have been bad for them.
"rutabagas" almost had to look that up then I remembered! (we call them turnips)
mark mywords
Active member
Actually that prompted a memory of when the UK changed its currency from the old LSD to decimal.
at any time you could have had a mix of the two currencies in your pocket, there were two types of shop decimal shops (with decimal prices ) and LSD shops it didnt last long but it was a pain in the bum at the time
In the U.S. rent for a 300 square foot apartment in lower Manhattan (Greenwich Village) may well be ten times as much as more comfortable accommodations in rural Kentucky.
There may be less price elasticity for a bottle of Guinness Extra Stout, or a can of Beefaroni, but even at a 10:1 rent disparity both economies use the U.S. dollar. On Manhattan (NYC) rent is higher, so salaries are higher too.
"Once you are in the Euro zone you have to hand over control of large parts of your economy to the European central bank" to be a full E.U. member.
But to drag a financially retarded nation's severely off-paced economy up to fast enough to cruise with the pack, the increments might have to be quite small.
Speculate until purple, one thing we know: the way Greece was assimilated by the E.U. didn't work.
Where's my heart medication !
mm:
I sincerely severely love the English language. And butchering it is just part of the fun. BUT !!
In the U.S. the term "yam" and "sweet potato" are sometimes used interchangeably. Experts have claimed they're not the same. One step at a time:
ru·ta·ba·ga
(rtə-bā′gə, rtə-, r′tə-bāgə, rt′ə-)n.
1. A plant (Brassica napus var. napobrassica) in the mustard family, having a thick bulbous yellowish root used as a vegetable.
tur·nip
(tûrnĭp)n.
1. A widely cultivated Eurasian plant (Brassica rapa) of the mustard family, having a large rounded edible whitish root and edible leaves.
pars·nip
(pärsnĭp)n.
1. A plant (Pastinaca sativa) in the parsley family, native to Eurasia, cultivated for its long, white, edible, fleshy root.
I don't care for turnips, have a somewhat metalic-like taste. But simmer parsnips with a 20 lb turkey in a cauldron (stock pot) for six and a half hours (20 minutes per pound) and they add texture, charm, authenticity, and even a little flavor, along with other root veggies, carrots, potatoes, garlic, onion ...
My wide-angle pot-shot (see what I did there?) at English:
- Transport freight by rail, truck, or car and it's called "shipping". Transport it by ship, and it's called "cargo".
- Flammable and inflammable are synonyms. Somebody better do something about that before somebody gets hurt.
- Up beat, or beat up? Not the same, but flammable and inflammable are ?! Gee Whizz
- The progression is obvious: first there's primeval, then medieval, then evil. Right? Not in the stinkin' language you guys dumped on us.
- Why do we park on the driveway, and drive on the parkway ?!
Maybe we should upgrade to ambiguous hand gestures, punctuated with a little semaphore on special occasions.
Tell the warden to get my semi-private room ready.
- and if that weren't enough ...
Somehow I ended up in London over new year's '73 to '74.
That was during an OPEC embargo. Cars were not only driving around London at night with regular headlights off, they were driving on the left side of the road !
While there I had a squabble with a phone box operator. She said that thing I was holding in my hand wasn't a ... (whatever she said it wasn't). I told her, the thing I'm holding in my hand says ... (whatever it said it was) right on it.
Still not sure who won that one.
Dude.
You seem like a nice guy. If you ever decide to shrug off the swarm of inconsistencies native to your island home, consider coming to America, where you can worry about stuff that really matters, like whether your neighbor is going to shoot you today. Consider it a standing invitation, for you and a special guest.