No such thing as LWOP

[Russki]

There is a note that we should remain on topic. I will however say to JT that he suggests that I am a Marxist. I am socialist...a different animal and that you well know. (I have been described as the French answer to Wedgewood Ben)

You also say that I have choked on my silver spoon... far from it...but it does not stop me from trying to move towards better social equality.

Going back to LWOP...my problem is that such people live in the general population in prison and generally can develop some form of 'lifestyle'.

This is a lot more than the victims they have killed.

Death row inmates, even if they die there, do not have anything like that....it is just existence....even that is better than LWOP.
Frenchy

[JT]

There is a note that we should remain on topic. I will however say to JT that he suggests that I am a Marxist. I am socialist...a different animal and that you well know. (I have been described as the French answer to Wedgewood Ben)

You also say that I have choked on my silver spoon... far from it...but it does not stop me from trying to move towards better social equality.

Uhh... right then, whatever.

I see you've used the time-honoured argument that Marxism and socialism are not one and the same.  I was aware of that.  Marxism is a political theory for the analysis of society; socialism and communism are the implementations thereof.  But you damn well know what I meant when I used the term Marxist, for it is commonly used as a blanket term.  If you are a socialist, you adhere at least partially to Marxist principles.  Nice try, though.

Ironically, the "choking on a silver spoon" jibe was first used to describe Tony Benn... Even more ironically, Benn actually supports British withdrawal from the EUSSR unless it can reform itself to become a much more democratic entity...

It gives me endless warm fuzzies that you strive towards "better social equality," but history simply teaches us that it does not work.  State-enforced social equality operates by dragging the successful down to the level of the least common denominator, whereas capitalism and the free market present to the feckless of society the tools to work their way up the financial ladder.  Betterment is based entirely on worth and quality of output, rather than an uninspiring birthright for the lazy dolts of the nation.

We British know, from the disreputable 1970's, that socialism does not work.  Businessmen, doctors, scientists, engineers and lawyers and whoever else do not simply stand around while the government thieves their rightful earnings.  They pack up and leave in their droves.  The resultant "brain drain" was only part of what nearly bankrupted Britain and set the stage for the rise to power of the venerable Margaret Thatcher.  Her economic policies once again made Britain an attractive place for business.  These business thingies, you might or might not have noticed, have a strange, inexplicable propensity to employ people.  Having citizens employed means they do not leech off the state, and in turn a lower burden for the government means taxes can be lowered.  Lower taxes means more money for the businesses, which then means further job creation.  The entire process is cyclic and self-perpetuating.

Socialism has well and truly failed.  It has never worked anywhere it has been tried.  Where it has been tried, it has resulted in massive totalitarianism and almost the entire abolition of personal liberty.  Most of Eastern Europe has been free of the shackles of the Soviets for less than twenty years.  Yet, shockingly, there still exist some brain dead morons who think that, somehow beyond any modicum of common sense, this time round if we were to reintroduce socialism it could work.  That's despite it NEVER having worked in the past.

Give it up.  The jury has long since returned on socialism, and the verdict is not in your favour.

[JT]

STOP THE PRESS: JT was right...

Two articles ripped from today's The Sunday Telegraph:

Economic 'Iron Curtain' threatens to divide Europe

The European Union has been warned not to let a new economic "Iron Curtain" divide the continent during the global downturn.
Hungary urged the 27 EU leaders meeting at an emergency summit in Brussels not to let the bloc's weakest members go under in the crisis.

Ferenc Gyurcsany, Hungary's prime minister, said the credit crunch was hitting poorer, eastern member states the hardest. The Hungarian leader called for a special EU fund of up to €190 billion (£168 billion) to help restore trust and solvency in eastern EU members' financial markets.

"We should not allow that a new Iron Curtain should be set up and divide Europe," said Mr Gyurcsany. "In the beginning of the nineties we reunified Europe, now the challenge is whether we will be able to reunify Europe financially."

EU nations are all grappling with a worsening recession, compounded by a severe credit crunch that has left many EU countries looking ever more inward to protect jobs and companies from international competition. Those policies are now undermining the open market cornerstone on which the EU is founded.

Ahead of the summit, the leaders of nine countries – Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Romania and the three Baltic states – forged a common stand to pressure richer members to back up vague pledges of support with action.

Donald Tusk, the Polish prime minister, said the nine leaders called for "a spirit against protectionism and egoism."

Hungary, Poland and the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania also want the EU to fast-track their bids to join the euro-currency, which could offer them a stable financial anchor. Latvia's government has already collapsed amid the economic fallout.

Other EU members, like Sweden, want to co-ordinate a Europe-wide bail-out plan for car producers.

Mirek Topolanek, prime minister of the Czech Republic, which holds the EU presidency, has called on his counterparts to act together.

A draft summit conclusion centred on the need to reconfirm their commitment to "make the maximum possible use" of the EU's cherished free market "as the engine for recovery."

Topolanek said the EU does "not want any new dividing lines. We do not want a Europe divided along a North-South or an East-West line, pursuing a beggar-thy-neighbour policy is unacceptable."

The crisis has sorely tested solidarity among EU nations.

The Czech Republic has accused France of trying to protect its local car plants at the expense of foreign subsidiaries, while Germany, the EU's economic powerhouse, has rejected calls to help bail out economies in Ireland, Greece and Portugal.

Sunday's talks are meant to restore a unified purpose and help prepare for the April 2 Group of 20 nations summit in London.

Once-booming east European economies have been hit hard by the economic downturn. As cheap credit dried up their export markets shrank, causing eastern currencies to sink and triggering more financial turmoil.

Gyurcsany said eastern EU countries could need up to €300 billion (£266 billion), or 30 per cent of the region's gross domestic production this year.

He warned that failure to offer bigger bailouts "could lead to massive contractions" in their economies and lead to "large-scale defaults" that would affect Europe as a whole. It could also trigger political unrest and immigration pressures as jobless rates soar, he said.

EU governments have already spent €300 billion in bank recapitalisations and put up €2.5 trillion (£2.2 trillion) to guarantee loans of many banks in the EU and neighbouring states.

On Friday, the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development, the European Investment Bank and the World Bank said they will jointly provide €24.5 billion (£21.7 billion) in emergency aid to shore up the battered finances of eastern European nations.

Gordon Brown insists the European Union is united in response to global economic crisis

Gordon Brown has insisted the European Union is united in its response to the global economic crisis after joining fellow leaders for an emergency summit in Brussels.

Amid reports of a split between the major economies and members states from central and Eastern Europe, the Prime Minister said: "People neither want protectionism nor do they want to be in a situation where we don't take the interest rate and the fiscal action that is necessary.

"I found complete support for the measures that I am talking about that are central to the success of the G20 [summit in London next month]."

Speaking after the talks, Mr Brown said: "Today was the start of a European consensus on all these major issues that are facing the world community: yes to better regulation; yes to action on the shadow banking system and hedge funds; no to protectionism; yes to fiscal and monetary stimulus; no to maintaining the old status quo on the role of our financial institutions."

He said he would take a "clear message" to Barack Obama from all EU leaders when he travels to Washington on Monday.

Mr Brown will be the first of the EU leaders to hold face-to-face talks with the new US President.

"Bold global action, a global grand bargain, is not now just necessary but it is vitally urgent to deal with the challenges of the world economy," Mr Brown said.

"When, in exactly one month's time, world leaders gather in London to take the big decisions necessary to secure our economic future we must, and we will, succeed."

Earlier Hungary urged the 27 EU leaders not to let the bloc's weakest members go under in the crisis.

Ferenc Gyurcsany, Hungary's prime minister, said the credit crunch was hitting poorer, eastern member states the hardest. He called for a special EU fund of up to €190 billion (£168 billion) to help restore trust and solvency in eastern EU members' financial markets.

"We should not allow that a new Iron Curtain should be set up and divide Europe," said Mr Gyurcsany. "In the beginning of the nineties we reunified Europe, now the challenge is whether we will be able to reunify Europe financially."

When Gordon Brown says that something is okay, you can rest assured that it is well and truly fucked beyond all recognition.

To paraphrase Jimmy Ruffin, what becomes of the broken EU?

[Michael]

JT, i think you´re sme kind of Euro-phobic...

You´re wrong, everything is fine and these countries had much bigger problems without EUR and EU.

If you wan´t we get into the ring in a separate topic and we can discuss the whole topic back and forward and at the end we have the same opinions as before. None of us moved a bit. 

Michael

[JT]

But if the problems with the Euro drives these countries to bankruptcy, then what?  It's all well and good saying that they will make it through the crisis intact, but some of them may need to leave the Euro to repatriate control of their own currency.  Such a manoeuvre would spell serious trouble for the eurozone, would it not?

[Michael]

I think it´s no good idea, but I´ll answer you... 

One big problem of the mentioned countries is that they didn´t use the "good times" to reduce the financial deficits. No they have problems to finance the debts or to get "cheap" new debts. The interest rates of the eastern coutnries, Greece, Spain are much higher than the interest rates of Germany, Netherlands or France.

This is not a problem of the EUR. A big apart of the loss of the EUR is based on the fact, that the most eastern european countries have their debts at european banks and a possible state bankcrupticy has direct impact on the european economy.

If they would repatrate the control of their own currency they have just on chance and this is the devaluation and I (and some experts) think this is completly wrong. BTW, they´re free to leave the EUR-zone.

Michael

[JT]

You are correct to say that it is not an inherent problem with the Euro.  It is a problem, however, with supranational currencies which hold equal interest rates over nations which actually need different interest rates to function efficiently.  How can this problem be rectified but for these nations to withdraw from the Euro?

There is one additional problem: many of the newcomer EU countries have written into their contracts that they cannot withdraw from EMU without seceding entirely from the Union.  In effect, they are not free to withdraw, because whether they stay or whether they withdraw they will still suffer massive economic difficulties.

[Michael]

I think I can state that the crisis of the countries like Greece, Spain and a lot of the eastern countries are the product of wrong politics. The politicans forgot to reduce the debts in good times and in bad times they got a problem. The ignored a rule, every housewife (and for politcal correctness houseman) knows.

Until this point I see no guilt of the EUR, the EU or the EMU. Germany f.e. benefits from the pressure they recieved to reduce the financial deficit.

I don´t find contracts that refuse the withdraw from the EMU. Anyway, at least it´s just not practicable.

And what are the options of the countries after that? Reduce or raise the interest rates? These countries are so weak that they need support from other european countries - do you expect that they´re without the EUR more attractive for foreign investors?

Who´ll help them if venture capital companies speculate against their currency?

These countries can try to devaluate their currency - but would this be helpful? This is nothing else than protectionism. And since the 30s of the last century we know that protectionism is the worst thing in tha actual situation.

I still believe in the free and fair markets and that the comepetition brings up the best solutions.

Michael

[Russki]

I think your points are valid. The real reason for problems was the absurd (in my view) policy of including 'third world' countries into the EU. I always contended that they should have had a much longer 'intermediate assimilation period'. I always thought that their rapid inclusion was more about 'grabbing influence from Russia' rather than any sensible reason.

Frenchy

[Michael]

Are you the man who told us to stay on the topic Frenchy? 

I can´t agree with you completly. You´re right the including of the (south-)east european countrie sinto the EU was to quick, but what was the other solution? Let them do their thing? The effect of this decision would be mass immigration, pollution, lost markets for our economies, ..

Michael

[Jeff1857]

Guys, the topic of the thread is about LWOP and not the EU.