Carlos The Jackel

I agree completely, once I get her puncture repaired she be as good as new

philc

always the same on this bbs - start off with a well reasoned, educated, dissertation on some item of current political interest and the thread ends up discussing 'fit' women - or in this case, blow-up women.

My question is - why do we have to always have the boring bits at the beginning of these threads?

Luke

"My question is - why do we have to always have the boring bits at the beginning of these threads?"

A classic!!

TelBoy

Just to get boringly back on track, before we get back to the virtues of Eatern European women (), i would re-iterate many of the points made already;

1. It is a politically motivated exercise. And they know it. And they haven't made much of an effort to disguise the fact either.

2. Although it will expand the European "market", the countries being brought in are cheap product producers, suppliers of cheap labour and net takers of cash. Put another way, they will eventually drag down the economic potential of the existing Eurozone. It might, however, and on a completely separate note, reduce the incidence of illegal immigration.

3. On the plus-side, this could be a factor in undermining the stability of the European Union. I have never been a big fan, and this just gives me one more reason to maintain that view.

4. I cannot see the inclusion of any fundamentally non-Christian country, such as Turkey, Morocco etc being voted for in the forseeable future.

5. If there's ever a UK referendum, please vote "no"!

Tel

mark_h

Without finding out what the referendum is for?

TelBoy

Mark, you honestly think they'll tell you the reason for any referendum???!!

Like they did in 1974 when we were crowbarred into the Common Market..?? [img]images/smilies/mad.gif[/img]

DRUNKNORGY

Welease Wodger

cookiemonster

This is my favourite:

> 1. It is a politically motivated exercise. And they know it.
> And they haven't made much of an effort to disguise the fact
> either.

er.... duh

If its just dawned on you that the running of countries is a politcal excercise, then welcome to planet earth.

How else do you define it ?

LOL

DRUNKNORGY

On a serious note, My company exports to Poland and the wages and house prices there at the last count was 6:1 = average wages £50 per week and a 4 bedroom detatched house in a good area £50k (this was about 2 years ago). How can we compete with that?. Poland also has more farms than the rest of the EU put together. CAP anyone. It will trivialise France & Italys abuse of the set aside policy as their infrastructure is nowhere near as well provided for to combat fraud. An influx of cheap labour will also drive down house prices as, Cheap labour will drive down wages in all sectors. The housing market is driven by first time buyers and if they are held off the bottom wrung of the ladder, it will colapse (as happened under Lord Lawson back in 89-90). I think that a large influx of immigrants will destroy the social benefit system and those already vulnerable will be left to rot. We are on a high at the moment, how many of you can remember the low ?.

[Edited by DRUNKNORGY - 12/16/2002 9:05:02 AM]

cookiemonster

DO

I'll repost my post above:

--
Ironcially its the same argument that stopped Spain and Portugal joining the EC for about 10 years. And of course you cant move anywhere in the UK or Germany for all the unwashed Spaniards...

--


Also - the CAP question has been resolved (its irrelevant to the UK anyway as we receive nigh on exactly back from the EU as what we pay to it in CAP)

To be honest, this (ie, enlargement) is an area that I'm not sure about - but the immigration arguement was done 20 years ago, and didnt materialise and the CAP arguement is a moot point.

I think it comes down to whether you feel that Europe as a whole will benifit from integration, or not. History says it will - look at Ireland & Spain for example - a decade or two ago they were almost 3rd world countries, but their integration has benifited both them and the rest of Europe.

The majority of anti-europe arguements are emotive clap-trap (IMO), i'm quite interested in anything sensible though...

TelBoy

Mr CookieMonster, of course "politics" encompasses the whole umbrella of running a country.

In this case, i was specifically highlighting (to be fair, repeating) the point that this decision seems to have been made more for the reasons of self-importance for the European Union, rather than for any well thought out economic or social advantages.

cookiemonster

and how did you come to that conclusion ?

TelBoy

Because the whole rhetoric has been based on a series of assumptions about a group of distinctly different easern European countries, the like of which have never been included before. Not even Spain or italy were comparable, imo.

The policy deciders are also factoring out the "human" implications of this, i.e. whether the population of Europe as-is, really wants this expansion. What happens when a German factory worker is told he no longer has a job because his friendly Slovakian colleague will do his job for half the wage, and there's nothing he can do about it because we're all one big happy family now?

cookiemonster

LOL - poor example. Germany, if you remember, has been through this already. They merged with East Germany. Did all west german factory workers loose their jobs to east germans ? no - quite the opposite, the merging helped the german economy to become the biggest in Europe (something they now seem to be attemting to reverse, but thats another story). Poor Greeks havent invaded the rest of Europe, and poor Irish & Spanish didnt migrate in their droves across Europe.

I dont see what you're basing your logic on, as history says that the vast majority of people don't want to move from their homelands.

TelBoy

Mate, if you're basing this argument on what is probably the weakest economy in the Eurozone at the moment, one in which Schroeder, today as we speak, is unveiling a raft of emergency measures to try and save, and which many in the country blame the state of, at least in part, on the unification with East Germany, then i'll butt out now. LOL even harder.

Floyd

iTrader: (9)

Germany has nearly been, or will be sunk, by the merging with the east. All the east Germans were suddenly a lot wealthier, paid for by the west Germans. The housing economy is a mess and jobs are worse. It's all going to pot over there IMHO.

F

Pete Croney

Sorry Cookiemonster, Tel and Floyd are spot on there, Germany is on its knees because of the cost of integration. And what is being planned here, now, is no different.

These countries will only become markets for our products if their inhabitants can afford those products. Unless we give them the money, this will never happen.

My father in law lives in Spain and I have been visiting his area for the past 9 years. During that time I have watched multi billion pound roads be built with EU money, only for them to be sold off and tolled a year after opening. There is no question that building them has transformed areas of Spain, but we paid to build them and now we pay to use them.

How many roads have been built in the UK with EU money?

I see this whole exercise as nothing more than politicians giving each other a pat on the back and scribling their names into history.

Of the £9,000,000,000 a year that we pay into the EU at the moment, only £140,000,000 is given to Spanish fishermen so that they can fish Cornish waters. How much will be given to Polish farmers so that they can grow potatoes and turnips?