ARmy Rumour SErvice

**Alsacien** · 09-07-2012, 19:39

Originally Posted by Wordsmith

Economists seems to be fairly unanimous about that caused the euro problems:

-- Deteriorating competitiveness of southern Europe.
-- Lack of action from the eurozone when deficits were first breached.
-- Lack of appropriate 'tools' like the ability of the ECB to act as a lender of last resort.
-- Etc.

Would be they were so unanimous about the solution...

The thing that worries me most is the lack of honesty from eurozone politicians. Not one of them seems to be able to level with their electorates and say things have gone horribly wrong. I don't think there's the faintest hope of the problem being sorted out until politicians come clean about the scale of financial support that's going to be required for Club Med, the changes that will be required to EU treaties and the degree of financial sacrifice that's required.

If the euro survives (and that's a huge if), it's going to require very substantial changes. Until politicians are honest about what's required to sort things out, electorates will continue to wear their rose tinted glasses and the scale of changes required will remain politically impossible.

In the meantime, the train wreck gets closer...

Wordsmith

Does somebody pay you to spend so much time crayoning this never ending stream of misinformed nonsense?

**geezer466** · 09-07-2012, 20:06

If power is transferred to the centre and lets say this power harmonised the retirement age across the Eurozone at 65 what would the likely reaction be?

If a fiscal union with central decision making and implementation powers is to be a reality these these questions will have to be faced. This is after all what these summits are edging towards albeit at a snails pace!

If the retirement decision is not taken well in some states (I can't see the Germans getting to upset about it) whose army will they use to keep order?

**Drlligaf** · 09-07-2012, 20:07

Originally Posted by Wordsmith

As I've posted before, the retirement ages are very different in the different eurozone countries - will Germans appreciate working to 65 in order to subsidise Italians who can retire as early as 57?

Similarly, the Germans and the French have long been making noises that Ireland has an unfairly low rate of corporation tax. Will they allow Ireland to have a perceived competitive advantage in the Federal Europe? And will the Irish give a Yes vote for a Federal Europe in a referendum if they have to have the same corporation tax as everyone else?

The problems do exist...

Wordsmith

The current retirement age in Germany has nothing to do with external factors. It is nominally 65, however early retirement can be a lot earlier, eg late 50s. However retirement age is slowly being raised to 67. The reason being very simple. The traditional pyramid of lots of young workers at the bottom supporting a few pensioners at the top is slowly but surely going base over apex. In an effort to stop this the age of retirement is being increased, however that may not be sufficient. Neither the Euro nor European politics has anything to do with it.

**Drlligaf** · 09-07-2012, 20:12

Originally Posted by Walther

Similarly, we have a few communities in Germany, which overspent themselves during the previous boom years and are now bankrupt. The administration was taken over by a state appointed accountant in return for a bailout from the state. The elected mayor and town council now need to have every decision rubberstamped by the accountant if it involves spending money. This will go on until the finances are in order again.

A few communities? You are having a giraffe aren't you? As for the last sentence "This will go on until the finances are in order again" That could take a very long time.

**O2 Oxygen Thief** · 09-07-2012, 20:21

Originally Posted by Drlligaf

The current retirement age in Germany has nothing to do with external factors. It is nominally 65, however early retirement can be a lot earlier, eg late 50s. However retirement age is slowly being raised to 67. The reason being very simple. The traditional pyramid of lots of young workers at the bottom supporting a few pensioners at the top is slowly but surely going base over apex. In an effort to stop this the age of retirement is being increased, however that may not be sufficient. Neither the Euro nor European politics has anything to do with it.

I'm a tradesman, 63, my van renewal came up, clean licience, NCB 15+ yrs, my insurer declined due to 'age of proposer'..all this working to 67 has not been thought through, commercial oganizations are in the position of declining insurance (public/trade liability) leaving a 4/5 year gap and effectively reducing a segment of the population with no means of making a living, young workers..'**** em'..!!

**school_for_scoundrels** · 09-07-2012, 20:36

Originally Posted by Walther

As I have stated before, most Germans are aware of the necessity to help the poorer EU states so that the Euro, on which we depend will survive (except maybe for some populist politicians of the rightwing fringe).
The problem is that there exist no regulations and rules for such transfers.
People here are willing to help, but want as well that the affected countries will be eventually be able to stand on their own feet.
Unfortunately in many affected countries there exists a culture, under which populist politicians use such funds to fund pet projects to bribe voters so that they will win the next elections.
They are happy to take the money and demand more and more, but are not willing to tackle abuse and bad economic practices (e.g. tax collection and corruption) out of fear to alienate their voters. They do this claiming "souvereignity".
IMO, the only way to go will be defintely a more federalised Europe with a democratically AND DIRECTLY ELECTED parliament and government. This government should tackle those areas which affect everybody in the EU, but leave stuff, which is better decided at regional levels to the regional governments.
But when we get into the details, there are various snags around:
E.g. some European countries have a presidential system, which gives the president, who is at the same time head of state, a lot of powers (e.g. France). Then some countries are already federalised with regional governments balancing the power of the federal government (e.g. Germany). Then you have countries with a large population (Germany, France, UK, Italy), versus countries with small populations (Ireland, Luxembourg, Belgium). When electing the European parliament and government, will you go in "each country has one vote" or "each European person has one vote". In the first case the small countries have an advantage over the big ones (there are more small countries in Europe than big ones), while in the other case the countries with a big population will have an advantage.

Now that last solution is, if I may say so, just pure genius.

With your master conclusion that ``the only way to go is a democratically & directly elected parliament`` you have clearly either forgotten or overlooked the simple fact that there has already been a formula for democratically & directly electing a European parliament, which has been in existance, in one guise or another, which we`ve all been paying for, since the 10th of September 1952 !

So, as far as that solution is concerned, it does`nt look like there`s been much progress on bringing that forward for 60 years. I know, in the meantime everybody forgot the overpaid low grade clerks, promoted beyond their ability, were even there !

**Alsacien** · 09-07-2012, 20:42

Originally Posted by O2 Oxygen Thief

I'm a tradesman, 63, my van renewal came up, clean licience, NCB 15+ yrs, my insurer declined due to 'age of proposer'..all this working to 67 has not been thought through, commercial oganizations are in the position of declining insurance (public/trade liability) leaving a 4/5 year gap and effectively reducing a segment of the population with no means of making a living, young workers..'**** em'..!!

Indeed a relevant point. Presumably it is commercial insurance, I assume you are asking for other quotes?
My French neighbor is obliged to retire from the ONF (National Forestry Office) at 50. Cutting down trees and schlepping wood presumably gets a bit harder then.
He intends to go into handicapped home help care, with arms like Popeye he can help folks into bed/bath etc - earliest state pension is 55 (and its a small one then).

**ugly** · 10-07-2012, 08:22

Originally Posted by Alsacien

Indeed a relevant point. Presumably it is commercial insurance, I assume you are asking for other quotes?
My French neighbor is obliged to retire from the ONF (National Forestry Office) at 50. Cutting down trees and schlepping wood presumably gets a bit harder then.
He intends to go into handicapped home help care, with arms like Popeye he can help folks into bed/bath etc - earliest state pension is 55 (and its a small one then).

Fine if you are fit but most of us are doing jobs we can cope with rather than the ones we would all love to do. The older you get the harder it is and commercial insurers arent that thick on the ground, you often had to use a broker and the rates used to be aimed at keeping sole traders off the road.
the society of motor insurers sets general policy guidelines and if they want to price under 25s and over 60s of the road in white vans they will quite simply.
It was on rip off britain about similar tricks last month!

**Wordsmith** · 10-07-2012, 08:41

Meanwhile, back on Planet euro....

Eurozone ministers agree

Spain has just got a immediate €30bn for its banks - and I'll bet there's more to follow.

European finance ministers have agreed on the terms of a bailout for Spain's troubled banks, saying that €30bn (£24bn) can be ready by end of this month.

They've also had a re-balancing of their bailout terms.

As part of the agreement with Spain, finance ministers from all 27 European Union countries are expected to approve a one-year extension – until 2014 – of Spain's deadline for achieving a budget deficit of 3%.

And from Ambrose Evans-Prichard in the Telegraph.

Spanish and Italian leaders pleaded for ECB intervention to stop yields spiralling out of control. “At this moment the only institution that has enough money to act is the ECB. The ECB should start massive purchases of public debt,” said Spain’s foreign minister, Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo. Italy’s premier, Mario Monti, said market mayhem was obstructing the “the transmission of monetary policy”, the code term used by the ECB to justify intervention.

This has resulted in a slight fall in Spain's borrowing costs, but not a lot.

The yield on benchmark 10-year debt has fallen below the 7pc danger/alarm bells/panic level to 6.918pc, while Italy's borrowing costs have also fallen to 6.029pc.

No country has stood 7% financing costs for more than a few months before needing a bailout...

Wordsmith

**Walther** · 10-07-2012, 10:29

Currently the retirement age in Germany is 67. I expect to have to work until 70, which will be in 25 years time. As for the aging and decreasing population, we have to make up our minds to either increase retirement ages or to set up a proper immigration system, which will give working visas to people with useful professions (not like the current lala system, where it is officially denied by the right that Germany is an immigration country, so no regulated system, but on the other hand every undesirable can come here under the asylum provisions in the German constitution. E.g. my Sierra Leonian ex, who was a welfare sponge, got in (fortunately she moved to the UK after we split, she has family there and only used Germany as a stepping stone.), but my current Filipina Missus (for the last 12 years) would not have been allowed to work here in her profession as a nurse unless I married her, even though we have a shortage of nurses. Now, since she became naturalised Irish a few months ago she could, but by now she has reached a managing position in Ireland and wouldn´t want to start all over again in Germany.