Hey, I finally read LW's pentapost! Wasn't that interesting TBH, although quite readable. I think part of the issue is that he seems to assume I was advocating collapsing the UK through trade war (hence his argument about Napolean). I'm not. The EU doesn't want to start a trade war. If it wanted to, it couldn't (WTO rules, no institutional tools to do so), and even if it could, it wouldn't turn the UK into a third world country. It would cause a massive recessions in the short term (even if you can trade with the rest of the world, it takes time to re-adjust trade pattern) and it would make the UK poorer in the long run, but that's it. I'm still not sure where you started on that tangent, since no one adocated a trade war. All I see is you citing an unnamed MP who said that some German bureaucrat said so. Given the context and the undirect way this citation came from, I'd take this with a mountain of salt.
Unless you're Gunther Krichbaum I'm not worried about you, and again stop making assumptions on what I say and just read what I say. The German EU minister threatened one of our MP with trade war and I explicitly said I was not counting on international law here on the basis that it is flaunted at will, so instead I looked at the numbers to see what the numbers said. And it would not cause massive recessions in the short term for the UK, it would do so for Germany - our trade pattern is with the world and increasing. It wouldn't make the UK poorer, but it would reduce chance for economic growth in
Central and Western Europe, not the world. I also did take it with a pinch of salt on the basis I suspected Gunther was just personally trying to threaten one of my country's politicians, instead of threatening my entire country. I don't take threats at all to be signs of friendly intent.
Norway
What you terms "humanitarian money" is contributions to various EU agencies and structural European funds.
Paid directly to southern and eastern european countries to reduce income inequality on the behest of a progressive government? I included their contributions to the EU m9, they're in different categories, bilateral aid is just that
By the same token, the UK's contribution to the EU are also humanitarian (maybe you should include that in your massive aid budget 
).
Not so much the UK, but a lot of Germany's aid budget is swallowed up by the EU and a lot of their EU budget is swallowed up by aid
There is some merit into looking into this, but I am not a bureaucrat and tracking down all those numbers I'm not even sure they can do. Shit is a mess!
In any case, they amount to more or less what the Norwegians would be paying as a member, in the word of their own European Affais minister.
Yeah, as I said, this is because the Norwegian government signed their people up for all the obligations of a member even when their people twice voted against them. I'm not sure if that's in the original pentuple post, but I certainly remarked on that more recently, in how Norway was stabbed in the back and is more integrated even than Ireland or the UK. Can't get any more scummy than secretly signing away your country after your people twice tell you to stop :/
Heck you're asking me to take German ministers with a mountain of salt, yet take the word for the politicians who sold their country in secret? That's cold, colder than the refugees fleeing Finland
German Fiscal Situation
That report is all very nice, but you're comparing apples to orange. Every western country got unfunded pensions liability. My claim was that Germany's situation was better than the UK (I didn't cite a source for my numbers since I got them from the table at the end of my paper version of the Economist.
Just quote the numbers, the issue and the page. The economist are usually pretty good in having online mirrors as well
It is true that the pension issue is going to be less in the UK than Germany, both because the UK are on average a younger country (although that might be changing depending on how immigration goes, and because UK pensions are less generous. I've just spent 15 minutes looking, and found a couple papers that do back your claim (This one for exemple put unfunded pensions liabilities of 228% of GDP to 2050 for Germany vs. 146 % for the UK. However they all use data from before the financial crisis and the ballooning of UK debt. If you have some more recent numbers I'd love them.
I'll look into it later, right next to Germany's aid everywhere :
D
Of course, there are so many variable (growth rate, whether Scotland stays, etc etc) that it's hard to judge for certain.
Generally speaking just assume if Scotland leave = yes: UK leave = Sweden
Actually, I should probably make an effort of explaining my position better so you don't waste another hour on Napoleonic strategy.
I'm not arguing with you m9 I'm making my own case, and Napoleonic strategy is reborn today in German realpolitik reborn today, and just like yesterday, it is a poor strategy
I'm pro-EU. I think that it's better, both for the UK and the rEU if a Brexit doesn't happen (although as a good leftie part of me relish the kind of good financial standards we could enact once Dave is not there to act as the City's lobbyist-in-chief.)
Dave can't do shit m8y, it's the shekel wizards you don't know, and it's the shekel wizards of the world who have no loyalty to any country to most fear
However, I don't think it's going to be a catastrophy either if the UK leaves. The UK is probably the EU country that is the most able to stand on its own on the international stage. It's an island, which means it is less integrated with its neighbours than, say, my own Belgium. It has enough clout to not be entirely irrelevant on its own, including a decent military. The Commonwealth gives it ties with many countries that do not go through the EU.
I still think the UK would see its influence diminish, and its economy will be slightly smaller that it would otherwise have been, but it's not going to be the end of the world. And maybe we can improve that lumbering monster a bit faster once the UK is not there. The Commissions will move closer to being truly elected (Cameron was the only major EU leader trying to block the Parliament from having its pick) and we won't have to deal with Britain's endless demands for opt-outs.
How will the EU centralize when it has scared Russia and Israel and the Visegrad group? Methinks you need to redo two speed Yurop, for fast integration of the likes of Germany, France, Sweden, Italy, Belgium e.t.c. and then more autonomy for the more anxious countries of southern and eastern urop
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Topic: The friendly and polite Europe related terrible jokes thread (Read 1103063 times)