The funny part? You have 200million more workers, but you only barely pass the U.S in GDP, with the U.S being two times as effective then the PROC. (Circa 08)LewsTherin said:
Should Britain pull out of the European Union?
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Actually, I know a lot more about the EU than you think I do. I did Economics at A-Level and the entire second year was spent studying the EU. I've analysed both sides and although you make good points there, I'm still against it. I feel that the majority of arguments either way go against the EU, and I've looked at most of them and tried to see both sides. I just don't like it. The reason I summed this up in five words is simply because I didn't want to have to list all the reasons why I hate it, because there are too many for me to feasibly do that without spending ages typing. And I quite frankly didn't fancy spending ages typing a single reply to the thread. However, I accept there are some good points about the EU. It's just they are severely outweighed, I feel, by the negatives.razer17 said:
I don't understand why some people are so very against supranational organizations. In the current era of globalization and interdependence between nations, it seems natural to me that there should exist some supranational organizations to ensure stable relations and regulate trade and other such things which tend to be outside the jurisdiction of individual nations.
I'm doing Economics at academic level ( University, that is ) and I have learned that while there certainly are costs to the EU, the benefits are huge. Almost a third of the world trade occurs within the EU itself (Feestra & Taylor, 2008). Having no tariffs and improved trade possibilities certainly does seem sensible to me, as it increases trade even further. Since the UK trades a lot ( as seen in the following graph ( Trade as a % of GDP ) from stats.oecd.org ), the country benefits greatly from improved trade possibilities.Trivun said:
The only time that Britain's economy would not benefit from the 'EU' ( if someone had to be blaimed, it would be Germany's fault ) would be during the 1992 ERM crisis.
The funny part? Luxembourg has a GDP per capita that is almost twice as high as the US'. Also, your currency is overvalued, leading to a 'higher GDP' than it really is.The funny part? You have 200million more workers, but you only barely pass the U.S in GDP, with the U.S being two times as effective then the PROC. (Circa 08)
Well yes, what do you expect? The US had been fully united for what? 150 years now? We were slaughtering each other 50 years ago and even now the EU is barely more than a glorified trade agreement divided by nationalistic squabbles.Bulletinmybrain said:The funny part? You have 200million more workers, but you only barely pass the U.S in GDP, with the U.S being two times as effective then the PROC. (Circa 08)LewsTherin said:
Plus we have all the newly joined Eastern block countries dragging the averages down (not to mention France
). The point is that eventually the cooperation brings up everyones game & hopefully by that time we are one big happy family (LULZ).
Also, there's the whole fact that half the damn continent used to be under communist control and as such is underdeveloped, run down, corrupt and generally falling apart at the joints.scumofsociety said:Well yes, what do you expect? The US had been fully united for what? 150 years now? We were slaughtering each other 50 years ago and even now the EU is barely more than a glorified trade agreement divided by nationalistic squabbles.Bulletinmybrain said:The funny part? You have 200million more workers, but you only barely pass the U.S in GDP, with the U.S being two times as effective then the PROC. (Circa 08)LewsTherin said:
Well at least it used to be, the funds of the EU have gone a long way to helping rebuild a continent shattered by two mind bogglingly huge world wars, 50 years of misrule and international suspicion and two millennia of scheming sovereigns.
I'm all for the EU, people (especially in the UK) need to look past the benefits that they may or may not get now to how much better it will be for all 700 million Europeans a few years further down the line. If the rest of Europe is modernised, wealthy and literate then this can only help, not hinder, the UK.
Leaving the EU is possibly the single most dicklessly stupid thing the UK could do that's within the bounds of sanity (by which I mean things like declaring war on the USA would be stupider, but isn't going to happen anytime probably in our lifetimes.)
Britain is a small and not very powerful country. The EU is a huge and powerful bloc. To put it another way, imagine the EU is Tesco or Wal-Mart. That makes the EU able to force great trade deals and so on with considerable leverage. Leaving the UK outside the EU makes the UK a corner shop, and corner shops get put out of business by supermarkets.
Sure, the UK could probably arrange some deal where we half stick in the EU for support in some way, but they aren't going to back the UK up for free. We'll still be tied to whatever the EU does - they change rules, we'll have to comply, if for no other reason than the vast proportion of UK trade (well over 50% I think) goes to Europe. In simple financial terms, they could have the UK by the balls any time they wanted. So what you're really suggesting is that we'll still be paying the EU money year on year, the EU will still be telling the UK what the score is, except the UK will have signed away being part of the deciding process for what the EU does.
Lots of Brits have this strange idea the UK is a moral, upstanding wonderland whilst European nations are a murky swamp of ex-communists, corruption and so on. News for them - half these EU nations have better standards of living, less crime, don't invade Iraq because incompetent US Presidents want a hand at screwing the world up, and have well-established rule of law, capitalism, and lots more the British would be happy to live with too.
And all this awful bullshit about the things the EU make the UK do. This is nearly all nonsense piled out by Eurosceptic right-wing newspapers, most of which is completely untrue. Or it's the UK government putting their own little grubby policies in place and blaming it on the EU, when in fact the EU directive they are claiming is merely advisory or otherwise non-compulsory.
No-one pretends the EU is perfect. But the UK is still a damn sight better off in it than out.
Britain is a small and not very powerful country. The EU is a huge and powerful bloc. To put it another way, imagine the EU is Tesco or Wal-Mart. That makes the EU able to force great trade deals and so on with considerable leverage. Leaving the UK outside the EU makes the UK a corner shop, and corner shops get put out of business by supermarkets.
Sure, the UK could probably arrange some deal where we half stick in the EU for support in some way, but they aren't going to back the UK up for free. We'll still be tied to whatever the EU does - they change rules, we'll have to comply, if for no other reason than the vast proportion of UK trade (well over 50% I think) goes to Europe. In simple financial terms, they could have the UK by the balls any time they wanted. So what you're really suggesting is that we'll still be paying the EU money year on year, the EU will still be telling the UK what the score is, except the UK will have signed away being part of the deciding process for what the EU does.
Lots of Brits have this strange idea the UK is a moral, upstanding wonderland whilst European nations are a murky swamp of ex-communists, corruption and so on. News for them - half these EU nations have better standards of living, less crime, don't invade Iraq because incompetent US Presidents want a hand at screwing the world up, and have well-established rule of law, capitalism, and lots more the British would be happy to live with too.
And all this awful bullshit about the things the EU make the UK do. This is nearly all nonsense piled out by Eurosceptic right-wing newspapers, most of which is completely untrue. Or it's the UK government putting their own little grubby policies in place and blaming it on the EU, when in fact the EU directive they are claiming is merely advisory or otherwise non-compulsory.
No-one pretends the EU is perfect. But the UK is still a damn sight better off in it than out.
