Eurozone will collapse...

[mertle]

Originally Posted by Hugh

That's not what that article states - 'unusual' interpretation on your part....

Its example london south east sucking the life out the country by crushing the north.

Not the only one with the views we need to distribute more money. We cant continue with this everything has to be centralised.

It will harm OUR recovery if we dont sort out social mobility or the underfunding to northern towns.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/poli...t-capital.html

The fact that region london way too expensive this sucking the life out our economy. When you consider housing nearly double on average shows massive issue.

Unless we get government accept there is issues with this thinking then we can start solving the issue.

The High speed 2 has one objective get londoners living outside london living further away so they commute into london.

That maybe solution for london and south east its not solution for other parts the country. An expensive vanity which we could use money to revigorate business investment into towns create jobs.

Its like everything north birmingham is forgotten land.

[nomadking]

HS2 is to benefit Birmingham and north of there. I used to commute from Northampton to London and there is no way, even with faster trains, of commuting from Birmingham. Each weekday, I had to get up at 5am and not get home until after 8pm.

The London-West Midlands phase is expected to be built between 2016 and 2026, followed by the onward legs to Manchester and Leeds by 2032-33.

The UK government says the HS2 project will cost £32.7bn at present values and deliver benefits worth £47bn, although opponents dispute these claims.

Originally Posted by mertle

Its example london south east sucking the life out the country by crushing the north.

Not the only one with the views we need to distribute more money. We cant continue with this everything has to be centralised.

It will harm OUR recovery if we dont sort out social mobility or the underfunding to northern towns.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/poli...t-capital.html

The fact that region london way too expensive this sucking the life out our economy. When you consider housing nearly double on average shows massive issue.

Unless we get government accept there is issues with this thinking then we can start solving the issue.

The High speed 2 has one objective get londoners living outside london living further away so they commute into london.

That maybe solution for london and south east its not solution for other parts the country. An expensive vanity which we could use money to revigorate business investment into towns create jobs.

Its like everything north birmingham is forgotten land.

Please show me where it says, in the Indy 2004 article, that the south-east is sucking the life out off / crushing the rest of the country, please?

I can't find that bit - the only thing I can find remotely similar is

Naturally, the magnet of London creates problems for UK regional cities because the South-east tends to suck away talent. But it also creates opportunities, for other UK cities and regions have the largest market in this time zone on their doorstep.

Doesn't say anything about 'crushing', rather accentuates opportunities for other areas of the UK - but I don't suppose that suppoerts your proposition, so gets 'overlooked'.

[Osem]

Meanwhile back in Euroland:

Political parties in Greece have criticised IMF head Christine Lagarde for suggesting that Greeks were avoiding paying taxes.

Socialist leader Evangelos Venizelos accused Ms Lagarde of "insulting the Greek people".

Left-wing leader Alexis Tsipras insisted: "Greek workers pay their taxes, which are unbearable."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18227230

Not sure the Greeks are very happy bunnies right now.

...and in other news:

The insurance market Lloyd's of London is preparing contingency plans for the possibility of the euro collapsing, its chief executive has said.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18226128

Originally Posted by Osem

Meanwhile back in Euroland:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18227230

Not sure the Greeks are very happy bunnies right now.

...and in other news:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18226128

Article about pervasive tax evasion in Greece in the New Yorker magazine

.But its fiscal woes are also due to a simple fact: tax evasion is the national pastime.

According to a remarkable presentation that a member of Greece’s central bank gave last fall, the gap between what Greek taxpayers owed last year and what they paid was about a third of total tax revenue, roughly the size of the country’s budget deficit. The “shadow economy�—business that’s legal but off the books—is larger in Greece than in almost any other European country, accounting for an estimated 27.5 per cent of its G.D.P

[Osem]

Oh yes, Greek tax avoidance and/or evasion is legend - they tried to get it accepted as a qualifying 'sport' for the Athens Olympics apparently... What's not so legend is leading figures in the global political and financial hierarchy pointing it out publicly in no uncertain terms.

Makes you wonder who it was amongst the Eurocrats who thought admitting Greece into the EU and then the Eurozone was a good idea????

Don't suppose anyone will admit to or be accountable for that though...

[nomadking]

Just think of all the recently joined countries in the EU that could be considered worse than Greece. What is going to stop them from going on a spending spree?

Originally Posted by nomadking

Just think of all the recently joined countries in the EU that could be considered worse than Greece. What is going to stop them from going on a spending spree?

They didn't join the Euro did they? They won't really care if they are in the EU as long as they don't share the same currency. We would find it harder to get a bailout from the Eurozone than Greece did.

[nomadking]

Cyprus, Estonia, Malta, Slovakia, and Slovenia? With Bulgaria, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, and Romania yet to join at some point in the future.

Originally Posted by Damien

They didn't join the Euro did they? They won't really care if they are in the EU as long as they don't share the same currency. We would find it harder to get a bailout from the Eurozone than Greece did.

They are obliged to work towards Euro membership as a condition of joining the EU. however I suspect the convergence criteria might be insisted upon a little more strictly in future than when Greece was shooed in.

[nomadking]

Countries like Cyprus, Estonia, and Slovenia are already in the Eurozone.

[Osem]

Yes, the rush to get get countries to join the 'club' was considerable and it doesn't appear to have ceased although the current crisis is certainly focussing a few minds on the harsh realities of membership.

God only knows what the 'thinking' and oversight was. Seems to me the tests applied to the likes of Greece were about as robust as those which were used in self certification mortgages and with the same result - albeit on a larger scale...

[Osem]

Ireland is voting on whether to ratify the European fiscal pact, which sets strict rules on the budget deficits countries are allowed to run up.

Rejecting it would bar Ireland from emergency EU funding when its current bailout package expires in 2013

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18261922

The pact, signed by all EU members except the Czech Republic and the UK, allows EU member states to co-ordinate their budget policies and impose penalties on rule-breakers. It commits all ratifying members to achieve budget deficits of less than 0.5% of economic output. Last year, Ireland's deficit reached 13.1%.

I'm probably missing something here but are the Eurocrats living in cloud cuckoo land?

Yes, they are. But it seems the Irish have been taken in by the appalling propaganda being spewed out by the 'yes' campaign (which consists of almost the entire political class in Ireland). The polls suggest they're going to go along with it. Mind you, they know from tedious previous experience that there's little point voting no when all that happens is they get asked to vote again six months later and told to deliver the correct answer this time.

[ntluser]

It does seem a bit counter-productive to fine countries that are already in debt with large deficits.

It's equivalent to banks charging clients for exceeding their overdrafts when they have insufficient income in their accounts.

A far better idea would be for the IMF and ECB to come up with options which the countries currently are not using to reduce deficits.