Why the EU is a waste of time
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We haven't had any wars in the EU zone since the founding. That was the purpose, and it has been successful. If you have an open market you have removed the major economical reason for war. And most wars have an economical reason in the bottom. To say that it is a waste of time shows that you are either badly informed or narrowminded, or just didn't think all the way through. There are of course a lot of room for improvement. (Understatement of the year?) But to say it's a waste of time... Nope, atleast not yet!
Jörgen Andersson wrote:
We haven't had any wars in the EU zone since the founding.
That was the purpose, and it has been successful.Quite. And now that purpose has been served don't you think it is time it was scraped, or at least started again, on a footing relevant to the 21st century?
Jörgen Andersson wrote:
To say that it is a waste of time shows that you are either badly informed or narrowminded
Did you understand WHY I said that? The EU has completely failed to bring in a pan european standard for a technology that only came into existence a decade ago. What IS its role if not to do things like that? Straight bananas and kids blowing up baloons! Banning Hedgehog flavoured crisps, making fishermen wear hair nets! Are you seriously telling me that the EU is an efficient body that serves Europe? Apart for being utterly corrupt, it cant balance its books, and its members dont pay income tax, it acchieves little. Its only high points have been Shengen and the Euro!
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Jörgen Andersson wrote:
We haven't had any wars in the EU zone since the founding.
That was the purpose, and it has been successful.Quite. And now that purpose has been served don't you think it is time it was scraped, or at least started again, on a footing relevant to the 21st century?
Jörgen Andersson wrote:
To say that it is a waste of time shows that you are either badly informed or narrowminded
Did you understand WHY I said that? The EU has completely failed to bring in a pan european standard for a technology that only came into existence a decade ago. What IS its role if not to do things like that? Straight bananas and kids blowing up baloons! Banning Hedgehog flavoured crisps, making fishermen wear hair nets! Are you seriously telling me that the EU is an efficient body that serves Europe? Apart for being utterly corrupt, it cant balance its books, and its members dont pay income tax, it acchieves little. Its only high points have been Shengen and the Euro!
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The problem with EU is that it has grown outside its original purpose without adjusting the structure for it. It's like a really old legacy software that's just having new functions added to it. But I'm staying with my opinion that the open market is a really good idea. And that should certainly not get scrapped.
Erudite__Eric wrote:
Did you understand WHY I said that?
To stir the pot?
Erudite__Eric wrote:
Are you seriously telling me that the EU is an efficient body that serves Europe
Only partly. But then again, how many efficent parts of your government can you mention? As an example, the Swedish Department of Fisheries have more employees than there are fishermen. Hobbyists not counted.
Erudite__Eric wrote:
Its only high points have been Shengen and the Euro!
Forgetting the Open market again are we? I'm not even sure about the Euro, the idea is great, but to make it properly functional we would need to have the same (or at least similar) taxation system over the whole euro zone, good luck with that. There's of course a whole other set of rules and laws that would need to be unified too. Good luck again to make people follow them. (Thinking about Greece here)
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The problem with EU is that it has grown outside its original purpose without adjusting the structure for it. It's like a really old legacy software that's just having new functions added to it. But I'm staying with my opinion that the open market is a really good idea. And that should certainly not get scrapped.
Erudite__Eric wrote:
Did you understand WHY I said that?
To stir the pot?
Erudite__Eric wrote:
Are you seriously telling me that the EU is an efficient body that serves Europe
Only partly. But then again, how many efficent parts of your government can you mention? As an example, the Swedish Department of Fisheries have more employees than there are fishermen. Hobbyists not counted.
Erudite__Eric wrote:
Its only high points have been Shengen and the Euro!
Forgetting the Open market again are we? I'm not even sure about the Euro, the idea is great, but to make it properly functional we would need to have the same (or at least similar) taxation system over the whole euro zone, good luck with that. There's of course a whole other set of rules and laws that would need to be unified too. Good luck again to make people follow them. (Thinking about Greece here)
Jörgen Andersson wrote:
to make it properly functional we would need to have the same (or at least similar) taxation system over the whole euro zone
This is a myth. It is what is stated by people who resent paying higher taxes and has no bearing at all on the validity of the currency. (By the way the principle obstacle to its real success is a common bond/debt system).
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Jörgen Andersson wrote:
to make it properly functional we would need to have the same (or at least similar) taxation system over the whole euro zone
This is a myth. It is what is stated by people who resent paying higher taxes and has no bearing at all on the validity of the currency. (By the way the principle obstacle to its real success is a common bond/debt system).
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I'd say we need both.
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I'd say we need both.
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Look at the US. Each state has its own laws, own taxation. Yet as a single currency it is the most sucsesfull in the world. So how relevant is common taxation to a common currency?
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Federal taxes are the same. State taxes and county taxes are similar enough to use the same bookkeeping and taxation programs. Try that in the EU.
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Look at the US. Each state has its own laws, own taxation. Yet as a single currency it is the most sucsesfull in the world. So how relevant is common taxation to a common currency?
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Not quite. The state taxes are rather symbolic compared to the federal. And the federal are the same every ware.
There is only one Vera Farmiga and Salma Hayek is her prophet! Advertise here – minimum three posts per day are guaranteed.
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Federal taxes are the same. State taxes and county taxes are similar enough to use the same bookkeeping and taxation programs. Try that in the EU.
Here is an example of a quite important tax, sales tax, AKA TVA, VTA, BTW etc:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sales_taxes_in_the_United_States[^] You can see how much it vaires across the US. Like I said, comon taxation is not a barrier to the success of the Euro. In fact it has succeded very well, and only when faced with the worst ecconomic crisis ever seen has it come under pressure. Pressure priciply because debt rates across european countries vary. Without that, there would be little quesiton about its survival.
============================== Nothing to say.
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Not quite. The state taxes are rather symbolic compared to the federal. And the federal are the same every ware.
There is only one Vera Farmiga and Salma Hayek is her prophet! Advertise here – minimum three posts per day are guaranteed.
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Here is an example of a quite important tax, sales tax, AKA TVA, VTA, BTW etc:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sales_taxes_in_the_United_States[^] You can see how much it vaires across the US. Like I said, comon taxation is not a barrier to the success of the Euro. In fact it has succeded very well, and only when faced with the worst ecconomic crisis ever seen has it come under pressure. Pressure priciply because debt rates across european countries vary. Without that, there would be little quesiton about its survival.
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That's basically the same tax but with different numbers. No problems there. I'm thinking more about excise duty and similar that has the purpose of distorting competition. When it comes to common bond/debt system I agree with you.
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That's basically the same tax but with different numbers. No problems there. I'm thinking more about excise duty and similar that has the purpose of distorting competition. When it comes to common bond/debt system I agree with you.
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Yes, this is a tax that should be harmonised, but it isnt relevant to the validity of the Euro.
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So ok, I'm a bit off track here. What I should have been saying before ending up in a discussion that goes a bit off topic and isn't my pet peeve is that: Harmonizing the tax system (and debt system) is important for the common market for the same reason as the euro. It makes trading easier.
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So ok, I'm a bit off track here. What I should have been saying before ending up in a discussion that goes a bit off topic and isn't my pet peeve is that: Harmonizing the tax system (and debt system) is important for the common market for the same reason as the euro. It makes trading easier.
Yeah, OK, in that I go along with you. Of course when discussing the euros stability as a world currency one has to look at how countries external to the eurozone interact with it. In this case debt and bonds are key, and an area that needs looking at.
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