Euro on the brink of collapse

[Razgovory]

The last time America a had a very serious economic meltdown Europe's economy was crushed as well.  Then it went Nazi.  Then it was crushed again militarily by America.  If that's the route you are hoping for, good luck.

[Ed Anger]

We can kill a million germans again after the war? COOL.

Where is Isebrand? 

[Syt]

We can kill a million germans again after the war? COOL.

[Josquius]

Have I accidentally stepped in a time machine to last year?

[Ed Anger]

We can kill a million germans again after the war? COOL.

We can spare you from the disintegration booths. We'll fudge the computer.

[Agelastus]

Without the Euro both would be bankrupt by now. Better be in a "death spiral" than dead I think.

Without the Euro they'd be screwed.  As it is they're humiliated Eurozone members (and rightly so - I don't think they should be able to vote in the EU for a decade or two) without it they'd be bankrupt and doing tricks for the IMF.

Sometimes I wonder if we even live in the same world. In Ireland's case especially the Euro has been the rock that has pulled it down. Without the Euro, with the freedom to set there own interest rates, set their own acceptable levels of inflation, and have their currency floating, they'd be in a LOT better position now. As it is (having worked for a company that dealt extensively with Ireland) their economy has been staggering for the best part of four years, at the least.

One of the best subjective measures seems to me to be the difficulty of/length of time for getting payment for services rendered. Ireland "went bad" a good 18 months or more before the UK in that respect.

Greece, of course, would almost certainly have spent itself into oblivion in or out of the Euro, since this is not the first time they've sailed this close to the edge. Greece seems to be incapable of fiscal rationality.

[Sheilbh]

Sometimes I wonder if we even live in the same world. In Ireland's case especially the Euro has been the rock that has pulled it down. Without the Euro, with the freedom to set there own interest rates, set their own acceptable levels of inflation, and have their currency floating, they'd be in a LOT better position now. As it is (having worked for a company that dealt extensively with Ireland) their economy has been staggering for the best part of four years, at the least.

Statistically the Irish economy hasn't grown at less than 4% between 2003-08 and the pre-2003 period was even stronger.  A lot of her growth will be slow in the future because she's more than caught up with the rest of Europe so it'll never again reach Celtic Tiger levels consistently.  Though of course she wouldn't have had very much of that growth without the EU.  And without the Euro Ireland would be lucky to get off as well as Iceland. 

In terms of fiscal policy the Irish in my opinion simply had far too narrow a tax base for a long-term sustainable budgetary situation.

[Sheilbh]

Serious question though.  Poles that travel the EU to get work.  Do they stay there and get citizenship in become British or whatever or do they go back or stay Polish citizens?

I think if they wanted they could eventually apply for British citizenship.  But there's no point.  They pay the same taxes and social security, they have the same legal rights in terms of work and education and, as legal migrants, they get to vote in our local and European elections (not sure about national elections).  I don't know why they'd want to become a British citizen.

[Razgovory]

We can kill a million germans again after the war? COOL.

If you emigrate you can work in army intelligence after the war, become secretary of state and get all the women you want.  Just like Kissinger.

[Razgovory]

Serious question though.  Poles that travel the EU to get work.  Do they stay there and get citizenship in become British or whatever or do they go back or stay Polish citizens?

I think if they wanted they could eventually apply for British citizenship.  But there's no point.  They pay the same taxes and social security, they have the same legal rights in terms of work and education and, as legal migrants, they get to vote in our local and European elections (not sure about national elections).  I don't know why they'd want to become a British citizen.

Well to be fair I don't know why anyone would want to be a British citizen.  I was just curious.  This wasn't an attempt to score points in the endless Europe v America debate.

[Sheilbh]

Well to be fair I don't know why anyone would want to be a British citizen.  I was just curious.  This wasn't an attempt to score points in the endless Europe v America debate.

I didn't think I was being hostile or that you were trying to score points

[Agelastus]

Statistically the Irish economy hasn't grown at less than 4% between 2003-08 and the pre-2003 period was even stronger.  A lot of her growth will be slow in the future because she's more than caught up with the rest of Europe so it'll never again reach Celtic Tiger levels consistently.  Though of course she wouldn't have had very much of that growth without the EU.  And without the Euro Ireland would be lucky to get off as well as Iceland. 

In terms of fiscal policy the Irish in my opinion simply had far too narrow a tax base for a long-term sustainable budgetary situation.

I know this sounds stupid in a way, but headline statistics don't tell the whole story, or even a particularly truthful one in some respects. I worked for a company that supplied industrial and commercial lighting. In other words, to the construcion industry (and in particular the refurbishment industry) which tends to get the first hit from economic problems as the companies that pay for the work delay or cancel projects. And business levels were way down and payment difficulties were way up from at least 2005. So in a period when you have "4%" growth officially you already have one of the key signs of a looming recession happening.

And this is not just the view from this side of the Irish Sea. This is what was getting back to us from customers who'd been in the business for twenty or thirty years and had never seen it so bad. Not even in a period from before Ireland had become such a "Tiger"economy.

Consider the Wholesaler market, for example. As far as I am aware none of the major UK ones have gone bust, although there have been some takeovers. Two of the major Irish ones went, without any sort of rescue, and the first was about three or four years ago. Not long after their largest road shipping company went bust, which was well before the supposed "4%" growth rates had stopped.

I keep hearing this, "Ireland would not have had so much growth without the EU" phrase, normally coupled with the information that this is due to the fact that Ireland receives so much more funding from the EU compared to their contribution.

Of course, without all that extra funding to create an unstable and unsupported boom, she would not have crashed anywhere near as hard, if at all. And without the Euro, she would have had a lot more economic options to fight her economic malaise, which is something I don't think even the pro-Euro crowd could deny.

So you can't really argue without the EU Ireland would be dead or worse off than Iceland as the conditions that led to Ireland's crisis are rooted too deeply in her membership of the EU.

[Agelastus]

Well to be fair I don't know why anyone would want to be a British citizen.  I was just curious.  This wasn't an attempt to score points in the endless Europe v America debate.

I didn't think I was being hostile or that you were trying to score points

Although only as anecdotal evidence, I did work with a Turk taking the citizenship classes, and she did say that there were a lot of Poles in her class.

I think that a good proportion of the Poles planning to stay will end up taking up dual citizenship, and, again anecdotally speaking, at least half the workforce where I worked was Polish, and at least half of them were setting up in a way which suggested they weren't going home anytime soon, regardless of the economy (buying property, having children, summoning families, or getting new jobs in the UK after being laid off saying they were going back to Poland.)

[Sheilbh]

I know this sounds stupid in a way, but headline statistics don't tell the whole story, or even a particularly truthful one in some respects. I worked for a company that supplied industrial and commercial lighting. In other words, to the construcion industry (and in particular the refurbishment industry) which tends to get the first hit from economic problems as the companies that pay for the work delay or cancel projects. And business levels were way down and payment difficulties were way up from at least 2005. So in a period when you have "4%" growth officially you already have one of the key signs of a looming recession happening.

And this is not just the view from this side of the Irish Sea. This is what was getting back to us from customers who'd been in the business for twenty or thirty years and had never seen it so bad. Not even in a period from before Ireland had become such a "Tiger"economy.

Consider the Wholesaler market, for example. As far as I am aware none of the major UK ones have gone bust, although there have been some takeovers. Two of the major Irish ones went, without any sort of rescue, and the first was about three or four years ago. Not long after their largest road shipping company went bust, which was well before the supposed "4%" growth rates had stopped.

Look people always fail.  There are always sections of the economy that are doing shit.  Now it may be true that this was happening in construction and wholesaling in Ireland but that's a smaller part of the economy than the financial services sector, retail, service sector generally and IT all of which employ far more people and boomed.  So I'm not convinced that what you were seeing was the canary keeling over or whether it was particular industries that weren't doing well.

On retail in particular (as this could be linked to the wholesaling) the Irish retail and hospitality sector has really modernised its back-office stuff in the last ten years and it's a lot larger and more efficient and more corporate which would, I imagine, have an effect further along the supply chain.  And I do wonder if some of those 20-30 year old clients were dying off because they weren't changing or efficient enough, that is did they not feel the Tiger or were they killed off by the Tiger.

Now we can argue over whether a dominance on the service sector is a good thing or not - and I don't think it is.  But if we're going to do that, let's focus on Maggie not Ireland

I keep hearing this, "Ireland would not have had so much growth without the EU" phrase, normally coupled with the information that this is due to the fact that Ireland receives so much more funding from the EU compared to their contribution.

Of course, without all that extra funding to create an unstable and unsupported boom, she would not have crashed anywhere near as hard, if at all. And without the Euro, she would have had a lot more economic options to fight her economic malaise, which is something I don't think even the pro-Euro crowd could deny.

This is ridiculous.  The EU helps a country build its economy from being the poorest of the richest to one of the richest parts of the world and it's a bad thing because when they fall it's extra hard and the EU's fault.  The EU invested a lot in Irish infrastructure - more's needed - but more importantly it was the existence of a common market that helped the Irish.  They cut taxes and had a relatively well educated English speaking populace with access to the world's biggest market.  Inevitably international companies would suddenly find Ireland a very attractive location for their European bases.

[Sheilbh]

Although only as anecdotal evidence, I did work with a Turk taking the citizenship classes, and she did say that there were a lot of Poles in her class.

I think that a good proportion of the Poles planning to stay will end up taking up dual citizenship, and, again anecdotally speaking, at least half the workforce where I worked was Polish, and at least half of them were setting up in a way which suggested they weren't going home anytime soon, regardless of the economy (buying property, having children, summoning families, or getting new jobs in the UK after being laid off saying they were going back to Poland.)

I think it's still really unclear.  I mean about half the Poles have gone home I think but they were overwhelmingly very young.  I still don't know if they'll end up settling down, meeting an English girl, having kids and so on or if they're still planning to go back to Poland.  I don't know if they're basically like European South Africans/Australians or are looking to settle.

Either way they're welcome