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[Owlbread]

"I am a nationalist" - an interesting take on the concept of nationalism, specifically Scottish nationalism, and the strong repulsive reaction so many have to it.

BTW I recently saw this and thought it was pretty funny. Probably lucky nobody beat him off the stage, considering this was recorded in Glasgow.

It is very easy to troll Scots. Just bring up Gaelic, Braveheart, independence (with the angle of us not being able to do it) and us being tight with money and shagging sheep. Also describe Britain as England and talk about "British accents", "The Queen of England" etc and express surprise at the idea that Scots even have art. If you can fit in a mention of your plan to "visit England" in the near future and see Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Stonehenge etc then take a day trip to Scotland and see Loch Ness, even better.

[mainiac]

It is very easy to troll Scots. Just bring up Gaelic, Braveheart, independence (with the angle of us not being able to do it) and us being tight with money and shagging sheep. Also describe Britain as England and talk about "British accents", "The Queen of England" etc and express surprise at the idea that Scots even have art.

What do any of these realities have to do with trolling Scots?

[Owlbread]

What do any of these realities have to do with trolling Scots?

I once met an English guy playing City of Villains who expressed hatred towards me for my Scottishness because, in his words, his "mate got mugged up in Edinburgh". You could probably count the number of braincells he had on a Yakuza's fingers.

[mainiac]

You could probably count the number of braincells he had on a Yakuza's fingers.

Okay, I know Scots don't know all that much about the outside world but Yakuza just have 10 fingers like the rest of us.  I doubt a hand could even fit the 100 billion or so fingers you'd need to match the cells in a human brain.

[Dutchling]

So I was like "What's a Yakuza?"

Spoiler: I'm totally in favour Yakuza's (click to show/hide)

[Darvi]

Obvious hyperbole is obvious.

[XXSockXX]

Okay so you don't want stimulus.  Whatever, I think it's stupid and the reasons are shallow but that's okay!  There are still different options here!

1) Fix the monetary policy.  Hitting a 4 percent inflation rate for a couple years would be within the supposed mandate of long term price stability after years of coming short and would go a long way towards fixing the trade imbalances
2) Be complete utter bastards, forcing the other countries to grinding deflation for an indeterminate period of time

We can get tied down in arguing over the details of 1, there's a lot of plausible sounding reasons that don't actually have a lot behind them.  But the alternative is 2!  What could possibly be worse then 2?

Reform will not help Greece.  Spain has none of those problems and it's not helping them.  It's just an attempt to shift blame.

No, I'm not against stimulus. The problem is just, if you just give a country money and hope they'll do the right thing with it (which is what we are basically doing right now), you have no way of control over if the stimulus actually works or if the money just goes elsewhere.

Fixing the monetary policy is rather difficult, and it's not really Germany's call either. The ECB is right now trying to fend off deflation, they are even thinking about buying bonds, something German bankers had warned against in the past.
On the other hand, 4% inflation seems way too high, 2% seems more reasonable (and more likely since we are at 0,5% currently).

Spain is on the way of recovering, while Greece is not, because of a lack of reform.

[mainiac]

Fixing the monetary policy is rather difficult

No it's really not, a decent undergraduate student should be able to crack this one if it weren't for the politicians not wanting a solution.  Accepting a higher inflation target in the short term alone would do an enormous amount but the ECB does the rate that's right for Germany, not the rate that's right for Europe.

[XXSockXX]

Fixing the monetary policy is rather difficult

No it's really not, a decent undergraduate student should be able to crack this one if it weren't for the politicians not wanting a solution.  Accepting a higher inflation target in the short term alone would do an enormous amount but the ECB does the rate that's right for Germany, not the rate that's right for Europe.

I seriously doubt that considering how the ECB is now dominated by Southern Europeans and how critical it is generally seen here. German politicians did have the idea to make the ECB a Bundesbank-style institution, but clearly that didn't happen.

[mainiac]

I seriously doubt that considering how the ECB is now dominated by Southern Europeans and how critical it is generally seen here. German politicians did have the idea to make the ECB a Bundesbank-style institution, but clearly that didn't happen.

The view from outside Germany looks different.

[Owlbread]

You could probably count the number of braincells he had on a Yakuza's fingers.

Okay, I know Scots don't know all that much about the outside world but Yakuza just have 10 fingers like the rest of us.  I doubt a hand could even fit the 100 billion or so fingers you'd need to match the cells in a human brain.

I was making reference to the fact that Yakuza often cut each other's fingers off, or shorten them, as punishment for misbehaviour and disrespect and mistakes and such. It's the reason why the Mudokons in Oddworld have 4 fingers as of the later games rather than just 3; when they released Abe's Oddysee in Japan the Japanese made the association.

[XXSockXX]

I seriously doubt that considering how the ECB is now dominated by Southern Europeans and how critical it is generally seen here. German politicians did have the idea to make the ECB a Bundesbank-style institution, but clearly that didn't happen.

The view from outside Germany looks different.

I can see that. However today several newspapers ran headlines like "Draghi breaks the next taboo", because the ECB is considering buying bonds as an anti-deflation measure, a measure the Bundesbank has opposed so far, out of fear of a new speculation bubble. Proponents of the classical German monetary policy would consider the ECB compromised (because it's not politically independent like the Bundesbank). Politicians apparently disagree, probably because they don't have any better ideas either.

[GreatJustice]

You could probably count the number of braincells he had on a Yakuza's fingers.

Okay, I know Scots don't know all that much about the outside world but Yakuza just have 10 fingers like the rest of us.  I doubt a hand could even fit the 100 billion or so fingers you'd need to match the cells in a human brain.

I was making reference to the fact that Yakuza often cut each other's fingers off, or shorten them, as punishment for misbehaviour and disrespect and mistakes and such. It's the reason why the Mudokons in Oddworld have 4 fingers as of the later games rather than just 3; when they released Abe's Oddysee in Japan the Japanese made the association.

There shall be no Japanese references to sully the integrity of this pure European Politics Megathread!

[mainiac]

I can see that. However today several newspapers ran headlines like "Draghi breaks the next taboo", because the ECB is considering buying bonds as an anti-deflation measure, a measure the Bundesbank has opposed so far, out of fear of a new speculation bubble. Proponents of the classical German monetary policy would consider the ECB compromised (because it's not politically independent like the Bundesbank). Politicians apparently disagree, probably because they don't have any better ideas either.

The fact that this is even considered the slightest bit controversial this far along is the process is a huge tell of the german influence.  The ECB is waaaaaay behind the curve here.

It's like intelligent design in the American school system.  Yes our school teach evolution.  But the fact that such a ridiculously outdated notion like intelligent design sticks politically around tells you a lot about the influence of the conservatives on our education system.  The fact that there is resistance to these policies six goddamn years after they should have been implemented tells you the extent of the german domination.

[GreatJustice]

I can see that. However today several newspapers ran headlines like "Draghi breaks the next taboo", because the ECB is considering buying bonds as an anti-deflation measure, a measure the Bundesbank has opposed so far, out of fear of a new speculation bubble. Proponents of the classical German monetary policy would consider the ECB compromised (because it's not politically independent like the Bundesbank). Politicians apparently disagree, probably because they don't have any better ideas either.

The fact that this is even considered the slightest bit controversial this far along is the process is a huge tell of the german influence.  The ECB is waaaaaay behind the curve here.

It's like intelligent design in the American school system.  Yes our school teach evolution.  But the fact that such a ridiculously outdated notion like intelligent design sticks politically around tells you a lot about the influence of the conservatives on our education system.  The fact that there is resistance to these policies six goddamn years after they should have been implemented tells you the extent of the german domination.

Those Germans really are clueless, advocating monetary policy that doesn't create asset bubbles or the potential for runaway inflation. They're clearly a bunch of backwards barbarians for opposing the ideal of a thousand dollar cup of coffee, or the resources of the economy being redirected directly into the wallets of politically connected construction magnates and the like.