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[scriver]

Which I think is a funny view because the countries in the North is the ones paying for the whole Eu project yet are completely powerless over EU policy and financing.

I thought Germany and France are the financial engines of the whole thing?

Not per capita, and Germany and France have the most power to go with their contributions as well.

[Helgoland]

Which I think is a funny view because the countries in the North is the ones paying for the whole Eu project yet are completely powerless over EU policy and financing.

I thought Germany and France are the financial engines of the whole thing?

scriver's EU differs significantly from the corresponding organization on our plane of existence.

[scriver]

scriver's EU differs significantly from the corresponding organization on our plane of existence.

Link 1 Link 2

(toady: edited for reports)

[smjjames]

You could do that without getting nasty scriver

I don't read swedish, what exactly is it showing? Tried feeding the page through google translate and it didn't work for the map.

[Helgoland]

Sweet, an insult coupled with links in a language you know I do not speak. Classy. Look, if you're going to pull a basic statistics con like calculating one variable per capita and one variable in absolute terms, I'm going to call you out on it.

Fun fact, for anyone else reading this: EU election rules make sure that the votes by people from less populous countries are weighted much more heavily than the votes from more populous ones. For example you need about a million German votes to get a seat in Parliament, but only about eighty thousand Maltese ones - that's less than a tenth.
And remember, the proposal we're discussing would move this ever so slightly in the direction of one man, one vote. That's what scriver calls 'death of democracy'.

[smjjames]

Also, as an American, I have ABSOLUTELY no clue as to what the politics and economics are behind what scrivers disagreement is. Throwing a random statistic doesn't help me understand the problem either. I get the idea of small states wanting an equal voice to the big ones and not get crowded out by the big ones, that's the kind of compromise and wrangling that the 13 colonies had to deal with. The smaller colonies wanted at least equal voice as the big colonies.

Fun fact, for anyone else reading this: EU election rules make sure that the votes by people from less populous countries are weighted much more heavily than the votes from more populous ones. For example you need about a million German votes to get a seat in Parliament, but only about eighty thousand Maltese ones - that's less than a tenth.
And remember, the proposal we're discussing would move this ever so slightly in the direction of one man, one vote. That's what scriver calls 'death of democracy'.

That sounds similar to the way the electoral college is proportioned.

Sweet, an insult coupled with links in a language you know I do not speak. Classy. Look, if you're going to pull a basic statistics con like calculating one variable per capita and one variable in absolute terms, I'm going to call you out on it.

Google translates the stuff below the map, but even then....

[Helgoland]

Remember, we're talking about a parliament that's being elected, not a single president. A closer analogy would be eg. California having congressional districts with a million people each, while Maine had congressional districts with a hundred thousand people each. It's laughable, really - to ensure fairness among states of different sizes, you have the second chamber, there's no need to mess with the voting process in quite frankly arbitrary ways.

[scriver]

The first link is a news article that has several maps over fees/grants to/from the EU as well as netto and per capita (Choose "Netto (avgift - bidrag) per person" to get net gains per capita). Redder means they pay more, greener means they get more. The three Nordic EU countries are all in the top six, which is made out from, in order from most paying, the Netherlands, Sweden, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, and Finland. In strict numbers Germany, France, and Italy pays the most, but if you look and what people are actually paying per person that isn't true.

The second link is to the Swedish government organ which the newspaper got the numbers from.

Sweet, an insult coupled with links in a language you know I do not speak. Classy.

Don't act all coy and offended. Don't throw shit if you can't handle being told to stick it back up your arse.

Look, if you're going to pull a basic statistics con like calculating one variable per capita and one variable in absolute terms, I'm going to call you out on it.

Then please do. What con?

Fun fact, for anyone else reading this: EU election rules make sure that the votes by people from less populous countries are weighted much more heavily than the votes from more populous ones. For example you need about a million German votes to get a seat in Parliament, but only about eighty thousand Maltese ones - that's less than a tenth.
And remember, the proposal we're discussing would move this ever so slightly in the direction of one man, one vote. That's what scriver calls 'death of democracy'.

The wolves and the sheep, people. One animal, one vote.

[smjjames]

Remember, we're talking about a parliament that's being elected, not a single president. A closer analogy would be eg. California having congressional districts with a million people each, while Maine had congressional districts with a hundred thousand people each. It's laughable, really - to ensure fairness among states of different sizes, you have the second chamber, there's no need to mess with the voting process in quite frankly arbitrary ways.

Which is exactly what I was suggesting, a second chamber. I had it in the upper post and was going to move it here, moving it here anyway:


edit: Took a quick look at wiki and the EU parliament only has one house. Maybe that should become equivalent to the House of Representatives, House of Commons, or whatever lower house and make an upper house and call that the Senate (or whatever you want) and elect a certain number of representatives, lets call them Senators, from each country and have them sit in there. Would that be more ideal scriver?

This is the kind of compromise that the 13 original colonies came up with, and they had the exact same problem of larger population states vs smaller population states.

I'm sorry for shoving the American system on you, but there's a solution in there. Might not be the absolute best solution, but it's one that has worked for us.

[Helgoland]

So Sweden is filled with cannibals? Or how do you guys elect the Riksdag?

Look, if you're going to pull a basic statistics con like calculating one variable per capita and one variable in absolute terms, I'm going to call you out on it.

Then please do. What con?

It says so right in the damn quote. You're measuring payments to the EU on a per capita basis, but are complaining that small countries do not get enough aggregate influence. Connecting the two, you cry out about what a grave injustice is being committed. It's a classic swindle, and not a particularly good one.

Sweet, an insult coupled with links in a language you know I do not speak. Classy.

Don't act all coy and offended. Don't throw shit if you can't handle being told to stick it back up your arse.

It's called civility. If you like I'll quote the forum rules to you, but I think it's easier for everyone if you just head over there and treat yourself to a refresher autonomously.


E: smj: We have the commission, where every country supplies one commissioner, and also the veto power for each country. It's not exactly a second house, but it's analogous.

[smjjames]

And I'm back to not being sure what scriver is complaining about. Does he mean like he wants one country, one vote? Or maybe three per, to expand representation.

[Helgoland]

scriver wants Sweden to reign supreme. Any meddling from outside he considers unjustifiable. Consequently what he is advocating is a Europe atomized into completely sovereign nation states. How he deludes himself into thinking this would lead to brotherly cooperation as opposed to the law of the jungle is beyond me, especially since we have plenty of historical and current precedent for the latter.

But hey, Germany will once again be free to pressure Sweden into giving us cheap ore.

[scriver]

So Sweden is filled with cannibals? Or how do you guys elect the Riksdag?

Sweden is a place where people feels a bond and accountability to their fellow Swedes. You know, basic solidarity. There exist no bond between Frenchmen and German and the Swedish people, they don't give a flying fuck about us, our ways, or our interests. That is the difference between the sheep and the wolves.

Look, if you're going to pull a basic statistics con like calculating one variable per capita and one variable in absolute terms, I'm going to call you out on it.

Then please do. What con?

It says so right in the damn quote. You're measuring payments to the EU on a per capita basis, but are complaining that small countries do not get enough aggregate influence. Connecting the two, you cry out about what a grave injustice is being committed. It's a classic swindle, and not a particularly good one.

The comment was about blame for what happens to southern countries being put on the northern countries despite how we both pay the most (the money which go mainly to southern countries) and don't have any influence in the EU to set any kind of policy which is to detriment of the south regardless. Separate things. There is no "con" in the way you describe. You are literally imagining things, yet calls me crazy.

Sweet, an insult coupled with links in a language you know I do not speak. Classy.

Don't act all coy and offended. Don't throw shit if you can't handle being told to stick it back up your arse.

It's called civility. If you like I'll quote the forum rules to you, but I think it's easier for everyone if you just head over there and treat yourself to a refresher autonomously.

This is an insult:

scriver's EU differs significantly from the corresponding organization on our plane of existence.

Making demeaning and passive aggressive slights above people's heads is not "civility", it's called "picking fights".

And I'm back to not being sure what scriver is complaining about. Does he mean like he wants one country, one vote? Or maybe three per, to expand representation.

What is it you don't understand, more precisely?

[smjjames]

@scriver: I think helgo described it. Plus what you said to helgo.

Maybe a new constitution needs to be written up which can be voted on by either the respective parliaments of each country or voted on as a whole by each countries population? *shrug emoticon*

Satisfying everybody would obviously be impossible, but surely there's a middle ground somewhere?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Such is the paradox of federalism. You can gain in some ways, but only if you sacrifice massively in others. It's hard to see in advance what will fall into each category, and it's not static either.