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[lorb]

If you look into the history of the EU it makes sense. For example the very organisation (the ECSC) which is the historical foundation of the European Union was founded to "make war not only unthinkable but materially impossible." (Robert Schuman) After WW2 this is what helped european nations to get together in peace again.

Edit: It's certainly better substantiated than giving it to Obama.

[Reelya]

Hell, France and Germany are historical enemies and the French offered alliance with Germany only 5 years after WWII. Now you don't even need a Visa to travel. That's really quite an ahievement for countries which were mortal enemies in living memory.

Then consider that American politicians keep talking about building fences between USA and Mexico, and those 2 countries haven't fought a war since the time of the Alamo.

[palsch]

It makes more sense than the speculation I saw about giving the economics not-Nobel prize for saving the Euro.

[ChairmanPoo]

The EU has been a fraud from the beggining, and is now a doomed fraud.  This prize is just a weaksauce attempt to RCP a corpse.

[lorb]

The EU has been a fraud from the beggining, and is now a doomed fraud.  This prize is just a weaksauce attempt to RCP a corpse.

Do you have one single real argument or fact to back up your opinion? By the way: Norway (the host of the NPP committee) is not a member of the European Union.
You really should inform yourself a little about european post-war history to understand why the new york times for example writes: "The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded its 2012 peace prize on Friday to the 27-nation European Union, lauding its role over six decades in building peace and reconciliation among enemies who fought Europe’s bloodiest wars, even as the continent wrestles with economic strife that threatens its cohesion and future. "

Edit: Besides binding france and germany together, isn't it nobel-peace-prize worthy to spread democracy beyond the iron curtain? To reconcile european nations that have been deeply split by the cold war? Hell it may be one of the reasons a third world war didn't break out.

[ChairmanPoo]

Do you have one single real argument or fact to back up your opinion?

Have you lived under a rock the last two years? Read a newspaper, any newspaper, and check out what's going on in the EU.

By the way: Norway (the host of the NPP committee) is not a member of the European Union.

Irrelevant

Besides binding france and germany together

Let's see how long that will last. (Best guess: until they finally bleed Greece dry and turn on each other)

isn't it nobel-peace-prize worthy to spread democracy beyond the iron curtain?

The European Union hasn't spread democracy *anywhere*. Giving this banking coalition the credit for what democratic advances the people of Eastern Europe have managed to wrestle from their goverments is an insult to their struggles. Particularily when now it's set on replacing goverments with "Technicians" (Italy) or putting them under the rule of the so-called "Troika advisors".

To reconcile european nations that have been deeply split by the cold war? Hell it may be one of the reasons a third world war didn't break out.

Lets see how long this "reconciliation" lasts.

PD: Hey! Look at what I found!
http://www.pewglobal.org/2012/05/29/european-unity-on-the-rocks/

And this is from May. Want to play-guess on what's the current take on the EU  right now?

[lorb]

Do you have one single real argument or fact to back up your opinion?

Have you lived under a rock the last two years? Read a newspaper, any newspaper, and check out what's going on in the EU.

Here's what I read in the newspapers after putting the tabloids aside: Greece faked their balance sheet to get into the European nation, it has been hit very hard by the US-caused financial crisis, richer european nations are spending billions of euros on greece to save it nonetheless but in return they ask greece to be responsible in dealing with the money. Besides that there is a huuuge fight of differing economic worldviews what "responsible fiscal/monetary policies" actually are.
Besides that the nobel prize is awarded with a look at the last 70 years, not just 2.

By the way: Norway (the host of the NPP committee) is not a member of the European Union.

Irrelevant

Just a reply to other people pointing at Norway.

Besides binding france and germany together

Let's see how long that will last. (Best guess: until they finally bleed Greece dry and turn on each other)

There are differences in economic worldviews but besides that the crisis forced them to work together like they never did before. Do you think without the EU germany (or any other country) would spend a single cent for something like the ESM to help the nations that are in financial difficulty.  Without that bailout greece would be in an even worse situation.

isn't it nobel-peace-prize worthy to spread democracy beyond the iron curtain?

The European Union hasn't spread democracy *anywhere*. Giving this banking coalition the credit for what democratic advances the people of Eastern Europe have managed to wrestle from their goverments is an insult to their struggles. Particularily when now it's set on replacing goverments with "Technicians" (Italy) or putting them under the rule of the so-called "Troika advisors".

See above. And: Monti is doing a fine job. He got Italy from being at the brink from becoming the next spain to relative safety but even if he didn't achieve anything positive there is no way he did a worse job than Berlusconi.
Regarding Democracy: What about the nations that are former yugoslavia? Or the support of Solidarność that led to polands first free and democratic elections in 1989? Just about any democracy that emerged out of the Soviet Bloc did so with a lot of help.

To reconcile european nations that have been deeply split by the cold war? Hell it may be one of the reasons a third world war didn't break out.

Lets see how long this "reconciliation" lasts.

Irrelevant. (The NPP is awarded for past achievements.)

PD: Hey! Look at what I found!
http://www.pewglobal.org/2012/05/29/european-unity-on-the-rocks/

And this is from May. Want to play-guess on what's the current take on the EU  right now?

Proofs my point?

[Reelya]

European reconcillation is permanent. And Europe as a whole is way less in debt than the United States. American media just wants something to take the attention off their own problems.

There are only a handful of nations in Europe with debts exceeding the United States on a per GDP basis, and they make up a fairly small fraction of the EU's GDP. Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, add up to less than 17% of the EU's GDP. It's positively laughable for the American media to hype up the "debt crisis" in Europe with a straight face.

The economies in Europe that are really floundering are the ones which have always been considered the "poor men" of Europe, and almost all of those only really became modernized democractic economies in about the 1970's (Greece, Spain, Portugal).

Saying that all of Europe is doomed because the historically weakest economies are fragile makes no more sense than saying the USA is doomed because of all the dirt-poor third world countries in the American sphere of influence.

Greece for example only makes up 1.7% of the European Union's GDP, yet it's the example we always hear about how Europe's ways are bringing the whole thing down. Yet it was purely the Greek government's fault they got into so much debt, they were cooking the books and lied to the EU about their spending vs revenue, which should have excluded them from joining the EU in the first place.

Greece is where the European Union is least favorable in your chart, even though they've been bailed out HEAPS. Any EU blame in Greece is the local media wanting to blame someone else for a crisis which is purely a Greek invention. Basically they don't like their being conditions to get the free money.

[GlyphGryph]

Greece is bleeding itself dry - I honestly don't understand how it lasted as long as they did before something like this, considering the level of crime, corruption and mismanagement going on at the government level. I mean, other counties can get pretty corrupt and incompetent, but from what I understand they really brought the artform to new heights.

I've never heard anything about how Greek's inability to manage itself as a nation is the fault of the EU.

[ChairmanPoo]

Because it was a setup - they were  and are involved in a series of abusive loans, the last of which is th so-called "rescue fund" (which by decree has to be directed at paying the other loan's interest first), and comes in exchange for economy-throttling "reforms" which are literally deadly for the Greek people. Oh, and by the way, those funds come from all the other countries. So yes, the "rescue fund" is actually rescuing the loans of central-European banks using everyone's money. Why do you think the German goverment is so keen on Spain being "rescued" like Greece and Portugal were? Rescues are good -for their banks. They increase their revenue using everyone's cash (the parallels with the Delos league are ironical enough). Furthermore, as the Risk Premium of the South soar (and "rescues" make them soar) their loan interests grow, while as a rebound effect those in Central Europe plummet. It's win-win for them.

The ECB is doing at a regional level what the IMF did with the developing countries for decades - saddle them with unpayable debts to keep them under a permanent economic yoke. It won't last for long, though. Things were barely holding together before, and with Spain on the brink of bankrupcy it's a matter of time before this financial racket comes down in flames.

[Reelya]

It's kind of implied by all the "debt crisis" articles which call it a Europe-wide crisis then mainly discuss Greece. Like this one from FOX:

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/10/12/nobel-peace-prize-to-be-announced-by-committee-in-oslo/

Which oddly enough gives a run-down of what austerity measures (like Romney/Ryan spending cuts) actually do to your economy:

Right now, Europe is stuck in a three-year financial crisis caused by too much government debt. To combat this, governments across the region have imposed harsh tax and spending measures to bring their deficits under control. However a fall in government spending has had a damping effect on Europe's economy — in the second quarter of this year, the EU's gross domestic product shrank 0.2 percent compared to the previous quarter. A wide variety of indicators are pointing to a further slump in the third quarter.

The austerity measures have also hit jobs — the EU's unemployment rate is currently 10.5 percent. But some countries such as Spain and Greece have rates as high as 25 percent. In Spain, every other person under 25 is unemployed.[/quote]

And that's trying to fix a "debt crisis" significantly smaller than the one in America. Kinda laughable that America can smugly say "I told you so" while they're just letting that same snowball get even bigger. Europe's taking the hard medicine before their debts get to the American levels. That actually shows guts, in my book

There's no points awarded for just kicking the can down the street.

[Reelya]

Chairman Poo, that's called the IMF's normal operating procedures, and the United States has plenty of fingers in the IMF pie.

The IMF is based in Washington DC for a reason ... the USA also has the biggest share of votes in decisions. The European Union's structures have no direct control over the IMF like the United States does.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Monetary_Fund#Board_of_Governors

United States influence

A second criticism is that the United States’ transition to neoliberalism and global capitalism also led to a change in the identity and functions of international institutions like the IMF. Because of the high involvement and voting power of the United States, the global economic ideology could effectively be transformed to match the US's. This is consistent with the IMF’s function change during the 1970s after the Nixon Shock ended the Bretton Woods system. Another criticism is that allies of the United States are able to receive bigger loans with fewer conditions

[scriver]

And now the EU wants a central banking organ so they can directly control all members as if it was a federation. Screw that. I don't want to be part of the same country as France and Germany when all they ever to is cater to their own populaces and bleed the Swedish system. No fucking way. The EU has too much control as it is now, it has to be severely cut down or we will have to get out before it is too late.

[Reelya]

Well you don't have the Euro for a start, so how's that going to affect you? and do you have data on them bleeding Sweden? Or is that just local tabloids?

[ChairmanPoo]

The fact that they kept their own coin is a big asset for the British. It allows them to upregulate or downregulate it according to their own needs (and not those of the Deutsche Central European Bank).
And to think that this was touted as British sillyness in the media a decade ago...