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[Owlbread]

I wonder when the next referendum will be... looks like the illusion of "Happy-Scotland-In-UK" that has been created by Pro-Britain media is trashed pretty throughly - by the hands of people who did not follow up on their promises of "devolution". Hopefully people won't get fooled the second time.

I hope so too, Sergarr. I think the Unionist establishment have already dealt a killing blow to the Union by not keeping their promises re: devolution, all for the sake of their own greed. The Union was built on greed in the first place - it may be the force that ends it.

The next battle will likely be fought on very different terms, however; the soonest the next referendum could come would probably follow an EU referendum where Scotland votes to stay while England votes to leave. That would force the corporations to choose between the EU or the British market, and moderate Scottish Unionists in the Labour Party and such between the UK or the EU. Though I don't think No-to-Yes defections will be all that numerous there will probably be quite a few, and we only need 5% more.

It's important to note that the thrust of Massie's argument is that Milliband is screwed and will probably not last very long. Any kind of working coalition with the SNP is extremely unlikely, and if he fails to secure SNP support he's doomed. Cameron or someone else committed to an EU referendum will probably be our next PM.

Against the backdrop of that new battleground we would use pretty much all of the most effective arguments that we had and jettison our weakest ones. I hope we reconsider some of our policies like the currency union - that needs work, and it's no way for an independent state to flourish for long. It's probably going to be untenable if the UK votes to leave the EU. We have time to work this out, though - the Unionists don't. We only need to win once.

[MonkeyHead]

... I had never thought of how England voting to leave the EU could be what kills the UK. Of the nations that make up the UK, it would be the only one to do so, and as such a good example of why the UK is fucked as a political entity long term.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Clearly what you need is a domestic political crisis that ends in a fucked-up compromise deal where the UK continues to theoretically exist as Scotland and Wales join EU-UK while England and Northern Ireland join the IP-UK all tied up in a rapidly confusing mess of Schengen and European Economic Zone that is made even more difficult when NI votes at an astounding 97.8% to join NAFTA. The Isle of Man and Jersey undergo forced depopulation at the demand of all other parties and are declared exclusion zones.

[Sheb]

There would be a precedent: Greenland is kinda part of Denmark, but not of the EU.

[mainiac]

So nobody talked about the deal that is going through.  The Troika gives Greece a 4 month extension without requiring Greece to increase it's surplus over the amount right now.  For me this deal was ironically struck right before I gave a presentation to my grad program on the current state of the negotiations so I had to start my presentation with "sorry, my information is a few hours out of date a lot has changed since then."

Potentially this could be a very big deal.  It seems that the Troika has found a politically palatable way of giving Greece time to grow it's into a stronger position before getting back their money.  For Greece that means that any increase in revenues will be reinvested back into an economy that is in desperate need of reinvestment.  This should trigger a virtuous cycle where reinvestment spurs more revenues which promps more investment.  I'm just going by a back of the envelope middle of the road assumption here but it's reasonable to think that given the Greek situation right now each Euro of spending increases/tax cuts will trigger 1.5 Euros in GDP growth and a euro of GDP growth will create .30 Euros of growth.  So if the Troika lets Greece delay the 4% target for a year right now that will lead to 11% increase in Greek GDP by 2020 (the effects after 5 years aren't that big).  Even just the 4 month delay they seem to be agreeing on would mean about a 4% increase in Greek GDP by 2020.  This will put Greece in a much, much better position to repay the principle.  By refraining from squeezing blood from a stone right now the Troika will be able to preserve much more of it's investment.

[10ebbor10]

So what you're saying is that the delay for negotiating the agreement is the actual agreement?

[mainiac]

The terms of the delay are themselves an agreement.  A short term agreement but an agreement all the same.

[SirQuiamus]

They were lucky to get even that, considering that Syriza jumped into the negotiations like a prizefighter. Trying to game big-bad Germany with an aggressive tough-guy act? Post-election hubris? -- more like putting up a show for your voters, after which a minor concession like the present deal can be touted as a major victory. I have no idea whether the short timeout can help Greece jumpstart the GDP growth (I'll have to take your word for that), but I'd say it's still highly probable that Syriza botches things by trying to juggle too many balls at the same time (for example, what's the point of having anti-tax-evasion measures if they are accompanied by drastic tax cuts?; and how do you fund the anti-poverty measures without increasing state debt? _{(revolution would be so much simpler)}).

[TheDarkStar]

There isn't a Russia thread anymore iirc, so I'll put this here:

A government official who opposed Putin was shot to death near ("meters from") the Kremlin.

[mainiac]

and how do you fund the anti-poverty measures without increasing state debt? _{(revolution would be so much simpler)}).

There is an increase in government revenues and a decrease in outlays due to the falling unemployment rate.  Given how big the unemployment rate was, there is a lot of room for improvement so we are talking about enough money to fund the programs Syriza wants to fund.  They can not however fund those programs and pay down their debts to the Troika at the same time.

Trying to game big-bad Germany with an aggressive tough-guy act?

Germany has actually been reducing their exposure for a while now.  They are a significant creditor but so is France, the ECB, the IMF and a pair of special ECB institutions established back in 2012.  The UK and US also have a few tens of billions each.  This probably plays a big role, the ECB couldn't care less, the IMF is... complicated but workable and the other large countries are less hawkish then Germany.

[SirQuiamus]

But how are they going to create all those new jobs? Shafting the property tax encourages rich (and middle-class) people to live off their capital gains, so no private investments are forthcoming. Although Syriza is clamping down on the short-sighted privatisation of viable assets, they should (in my utterly inexpert opinion) be actively nationalising and re-nationalising businesses to provide jobs and social relief.

EDIT: http://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/feb/18/yanis-varoufakis-how-i-became-an-erratic-marxist

Marx would have laughed long and hard at those who seem surprised, or upset, by the “democratic deficit”. What was the great objective behind 19th-century liberalism? It was, as Marx never tired of pointing out, to separate the economic sphere from the political sphere and to confine politics to the latter while leaving the economic sphere to capital. It is liberalism’s splendid success in achieving this long-held goal that we are now observing.

Nice quote, but isn't it about time for the government to start seriously interfering with the affairs of the economic sphere?

[10ebbor10]

The primary reason Greece is indebted so far was that they had an overtly bloated public expenditure, precisely because they used public money to engage in useless/non-profitable services solely because the public servants would vote for the ruling party.

So I'm not sure that nationalization will work.

[SirQuiamus]

I'm not saying it's a good idea to do actual Leftist politics at this point, and I sort of understand Varoufakis' argument about stabilizing a rotten system which would wreak havoc if allowed to collapse uncontrollably. Although real politics is their current game, the reason why Syriza won the elections is that they capitalized on the layman's experience of injustice, which I am reflecting upon from a personal, inexpert point of view: Greece has some hugely profitable industries (like shipping) and an obscene number of millionaires. --> Steal some of their money and give it to the jobless people living on the streets. Yes, that would be populistic idiocy / Left-anarchist pipe dream, but it would still be the right thing to do, despite the fact that it might have horrible consequences.

[smjjames]

There isn't a Russia thread anymore iirc, so I'll put this here:

A government official who opposed Putin was shot to death near ("meters from") the Kremlin.

Calling it now, it was orchestrated by Putin (of course he's going to condemn it) or one of his allies. Wouldn't be surprised if it was.

[scrdest]

There isn't a Russia thread anymore iirc, so I'll put this here:

A government official who opposed Putin was shot to death near ("meters from") the Kremlin.

Calling it now, it was orchestrated by Putin (of course he's going to condemn it) or one of his allies. Wouldn't be surprised if it was.

That guy was one of the major figures in an anti-Putin demonstration planned for tomorrow, so yeah. Although I'd expect that the man behind the triggerman was some major-ish oligarch or politician so that Putin could throw him to the wolves easily.