La unificación de Europa (Y que va a pasar con España)

[visillófilas pepitófagas]

Esos "trillones" anglos son billones, Xoshe.

"Trillón" anglo = billón = 16 x 10¹²

10¹²: billón (español) vs 10⁹: billion (american).

10¹⁸: triillón (español) vs 10¹²: billion (american).

"Español" no, hijo mío, Sistema Internacional.

[wanderer]

Esos "trillones" anglos son billones, Xoshe.

"Trillón" anglo = billón = 16 x 10¹²

10¹²: billón (español) vs 10⁹: billion (american).

10¹⁸: triillón (español) vs 10¹²: billion (american).

"Español" no, hijo mío, Sistema Internacional.

Que yo sepa, nosotros formamos parte de ése sistema, y lo que me importa, es lo que significa para nosotros.

A veces discutimos por cada tontada...

[Karunel]

Creo que el "hijo mío" es en sentido "¿puedes creerte que los americanos sean tan tontos como para ser los únicos que numeran diferente? qué paciencia hay que tener, eh!".

[pringaete]

Refloto: después de tragarme una conferencia de Martenson (el del Crash Course) se me ha antojado cual es el papel de España y porqué nos quieren de rodillas.

En no mucho tiempo no va a merecer la pena importar nada manufacturado desde lejos. Es cierto, no podremos competir con los salarios chinos pero ¿y con los salirios chinos + costes crecientes de transporte?

Vale, vale, están ahí los países del Magreb pero ¿realmente los tenemos estabilizados? ¿merecerá la pena invertir si mañana no sabes qué líder tribal te quema la fábrica? Lo cual, desde esta perspectiva, me hace preguntarme, en realidad ¿quién está desestabilizando el norte de África y quién se beneficia?

Alguien lo dijo hace mucho. Somos el Méjico perfecto. La maquiladora de Europa a la par que un enorme resort turístico*.

Somos europeos en cuanto a cultura y formación. A pesar de la mierda de seguridad jurídica que tenemos siempre es mejor que la de un caudillo bereber. Y a fin de cuentas, estamos cerca (que en breve volverá a ser un inconveniente conforme suban los precios del transporte de largo recorrido). No sé, cada vez lo tengo más claro. Seremos los pelos del final de la cola del león.

¡Santiago y cierra España!

*Este año hemos vuelto a batir el récord de turistas extranjeros, precisamente por que los guiris que antes iban al Magreb no se atreven.

[Karunel]

Tristemente estoy de acuerdo, y no digo tristemente por España sino por los ciudadanos de los países del Magreb, que creo van a sufrir unas décadas simple y llanamente horribles.

Hambre, extremismo, fin de su "monocultivo", inestabilidad política, divisiones religiosas, élites vendidas a Occidente, calentamiento global en un clima ya muy difícil, ...

Terrible.

[Xoshe]

Yo no lo tengo tan claro. A los EEUU les interesa una Europa fuerte, somos socios y no vamos a dejar de serlo. Además, a una de estas, se pone alguien chulo y le bombardeamos nosotros aunque los misiles los pongan ellos. Véase Libia. En su esquema les faltaba solo lo que más les importaba. Sudamérica y Brasil. Así que entre todos andan a ver si superamos nuestro tradicional atraso y nos incorporamos al grupo de cabeza. Pareció en algún tiempo no muy lejano que así iba  a ser. Pero ya se ha visto que no es el caso. Quizás en el próximo capítulo y nuevas ayudas de nuestros amigos y colegas europeos.

[Decreasing Management]

Refloto: después de tragarme una conferencia de Martenson (el del Crash Course) se me ha antojado cual es el papel de España y porqué nos quieren de rodillas.

En no mucho tiempo no va a merecer la pena importar nada manufacturado desde lejos. Es cierto, no podremos competir con los salarios chinos pero ¿y con los salirios chinos + costes crecientes de transporte?

Vale, vale, están ahí los países del Magreb pero ¿realmente los tenemos estabilizados? ¿merecerá la pena invertir si mañana no sabes qué líder tribal te quema la fábrica? Lo cual, desde esta perspectiva, me hace preguntarme, en realidad ¿quién está desestabilizando el norte de África y quién se beneficia?

Alguien lo dijo hace mucho. Somos el Méjico perfecto. La maquiladora de Europa a la par que un enorme resort turístico*.

Somos europeos en cuanto a cultura y formación. A pesar de la mierda de seguridad jurídica que tenemos siempre es mejor que la de un caudillo bereber. Y a fin de cuentas, estamos cerca (que en breve volverá a ser un inconveniente conforme suban los precios del transporte de largo recorrido). No sé, cada vez lo tengo más claro. Seremos los pelos del final de la cola del león.

¡Santiago y cierra España!

*Este año hemos vuelto a batir el récord de turistas extranjeros, precisamente por que los guiris que antes iban al Magreb no se atreven.

Yo siempre he pensado eso, que tengas costes chinos para un producto consumido en EU no quiere decir que tengas costes salariales chinos.

La producción será del mismo tipo, un poco más de calidad, menos costes energéticos, menos costes de transporte, menos costes de control (porque tienes que vigilar la basura que entra de china), menos coste de espionaje industrial (que es una barbaridad en China) menos costes arancelarios (en una hipotética desglobalización) y mucho más costes salariales.

Ese, las renovables y el dumping moral, ese es un proyecto viable económicamente. Si alguien propone algo mejor que pueda funcionar, me apunto.

[Currobena]

Sigue el proceso de unificación: el déficit comercial de  los países mediterráneos desaparece. En consecuencia, el desequilibrio de la Unión en balanza en cuenta corriente se vuelve positivo.

Eurozone crisis has eliminated the periphery trade deficit    <blockquote> </blockquote> The Eurozone recession is having a somewhat unexpected effect on the periphery nations' current accounts. As was the case with Portugal (see this discussion), the Eurozone periphery has eliminated its trade deficit.
 
 

[/t]

[/q]

Source: CS

 
 Domestic demand in these nations has collapsed, dramatically shrinking imports and improving the external balance. These nations just can't afford many of the goods they used to import. And as the periphery eliminated its trade deficit, the Eurozone as a whole went into a trade surplus.
 
 

[/t]

Source: CS

 
 This improvement to the area's current account balance was at the expense of a massive GDP reduction, negatively impacting global economic growth.
 <blockquote> CS: - We think that sharp, crisis-induced, rise in the euro area’s current account balance – worth around two percentage points of euro area GDP in the past nine months – has generated a significant negative shock to the global economy.</blockquote> This is one of the reasons the UK for example is struggling with a rising trade deficit (see this discussion) and a double-dip recession. Spain, Italy, Portugal, Ireland, etc. are no longer in a position to be buying British and other nations' products and services as they did in the past.

Eso significa que la austeridad está empezando a funcionar. Si conseguimos eliminar el poder político local y la unión fiscal, es posible que la crisis sea menos intensa de lo que nos tememos. 

http://soberlook.com/2012/09/the-eurozone-crisis-has-eliminated.html
[/td][/tr][/table][/td][/tr][/table]

[Currobena]

La organización europea a través del eurosistema:

[Currobena]

Dos visiones sobre la unificación de Europa.

• Sobre la política de austeridad y las prioridades de gasto:

Europe is Revolting by TOM GILL  London.
A general strike in Greece, massive protests by the indignados in Spain, public transport strikes in Portugal (and Spain), and industrial action by aluminium, steel and public sector workers in Italy headlined this week.
On Saturday mass protests will erupt again in Portugal as the indignaos movement that brought out a million into the streets of the country on September 15 – the same day there was another huge scale turn out into the plazas in Spain – join action called by the country’s largest trade union, CGTP.
And it’s not just in the Continent’s south. On Sunday mass demonstrations are expected in France, calling for a referendum over the EU Fiscal Compact, the ‘permanent austerity’ treaty.
The focus of popular anger is ‘Europe’s austerity madness’, as Paul Krugman puts it in his latest column in the New York times. But the protests also reflect a wider rejection of a political elite that is rolling back basic democratic rights, from protections at work to welfare support and gains for women and minority groups, and privatising as well as slashing public services.
A slew of economic data this week confirmed what is now patently obvious to anybody but the criminally insane (and economists) – austerity is not working. Eurozone business confidence fell to a three-year low and a number of other indicators across the continent pointed towards recession. Most damning for the architects of austerity, unemployment is rising in Germany, which was until now a mainstay for growth in the 17 nation economic and monetary bloc.
Overall, the eurozone economy stagnated in the first three months of the year and contracted 0.2% in the April-June period. Economists now expect another economic contraction in the third quarter. The European Central Bank meanwhile released data that showed lending to households and companies fell, and by more than expected, in August.
Yet Europe’s austerity madness continues. This week Spain, Greece and France pushed ahead with fresh programmes of spending cuts. In Greece, at least 11.5bn euros ( £9.1bn) will be axed from the national budget. In Spain there will be another 20 billion euros of cuts.  In France, President Francois Hollande’s government is going for a 30 billion euro cuts package.
What do these huge but dry numbers mean in practice?
18 million unemployed across the Eurozone, for starters, to which another million will be soon added, according to a new report by Ernst and Young.
In Greece, a cuts package near agreed by the government will see wage cuts, a rise in the retirement age from 65 to 67 years, cut backs to  pensions – lengthening the contribution period to get the minimum pension – cuts in benefits for the disabled and the sick, cuts to health benefits, cuts to unemployment benefits for workers temporarily laid off in the construction industry, in hotels and in other sectors, new cuts to spending on hospitals, and an average 12% reduction in the salaries of soldiers, policemen and judges.
In Spain, the “depression budget” as Socialist economy spokeswoman, Inmaculada Rodríguez Piñero, describes it, will see the wages of millions of public sector workers frozen for the third year in a row and pensions cut in real terms, and there’ll be no relief for collapsing health services, schools and social services. And the arts and culture will take a massive hit, with cuts hurting renowned institutions such as the Prado and Reina Sofía museums, another self-defeating move that will no doubt hit tourism.
Austerity has already resulted in over a million Spaniards queuing at the doors of charities for food handouts and other aid. That’s a tripling since 2007, according to Caritas.  And it is not just in the south. In France poverty is on the rise particularly among the young, including students.
The health effects of mounting misery are being felt too. A quarter of Portuguese are now suffering from depression, according to a new study.
The perversity of austerity – which at its most fundamental level is about drastically curtailing the capacity and incentives for 320 million odd people  to spend – was highlighted yet again this week. Despite all the cuts, it turns out that Spain’s spending is actually set to go up. That’s because of a soaring social security bill to pay benefits to the unemployed and interest rate payments on sovereign debt that have been driven once again by international speculators who are right in just one respect – without growth a country’s public finances will just go from bad to worse and so lending to Spain and other recession-hit countries is most definitely a risky business.
This is something that the new mechanism to ‘save’ struggling Eurozone states – the €500 billion European Stability Mechanism that forms part of the EU Fiscal Compact – will not fix. To the contrary. It will bury them deeper into the ground. The fund will swallow up about a quarter of the cuts Spain has just pushed through its own budget in order to save itself, and around a third of those planned in Portugal.
The reality is the latest round of EU centralising moves, from banking union, to ECB sovereign bond purchases and the EU Fiscal Compact that President Francois Hollande wants ratified in parliament next month – even at the cost of splitting his Socialist Party and deep divisions with his Green allies – are based on a huge lie. That greater integration and renouncing national sovereignty are essential to fix the Continents’ financial and economic problems.
Spain, Italy, Portugal and Greece don’t need an international rescue. Their own ruling classes have more than enough to bail their own nations out. In Italy, private wealth stands at 8.6 trillion euros, according to the Bank of Italy, or more than four times the country’s public debt mountain of around two trillion euros. If the wealth of the top 50% richest were taxed at a rate of 2%, that could raise more than 100 billion euros annually. A moderate tax on the top 1% could bring up to €15 billion annually into the state coffers. And then there’s the hundreds of billions in dodged taxes, facilitated by tax amnesties and tax havens that cash-strapped governments across the currency bloc like to talk much about, but don’t ever shut down.
Even Portugal, the poorest of EU nations, can dig itself out of its own hole if it wishes. The government caused outrage by proposals to raid the incomes of workers through a massive hike in social security contributions, a measure now withdrawn the mass protests earlier in the month. The government needs to save €4.9 billion in 2013. The CGTP trade union confederation knows how it could plug that hole and indeed beat that target. Its €6 billion budget proposals, unveiled last week, comprise a new 0.25% tax on financial transactions (€2 billion),  a 10% surcharge on dividends targeting the largest shareholders (€1.7 billion), a higher, 33.33% rate of corporate tax for larger companies with turnover above €1.2 million to be implemented in a progressive fashion (€1.1 billion) and a plan to combat fraud and evasion, through deploying more inspectors, setting targets to reduce the black economy and by broadening the tax base (€1.2 billon). But that plan would of course mean Portugal’s 1% paying their dues.
There’s dozens of other costed proposals out there that could tackle Europe’s debt burden and provide plenty of funds for growth, jobs and public services without hurting raiding the pockets of working people.
Take Italy again and international missions like Afghanistan that are in place in the name of peace and humanity but are instead resulting in death and destruction. Withdrawing from these commitments would not only save lives abroad but save Italians €a tidy 616 million, according to campaign group Sbilanciamoci!, money that could be spent on improving their quality of life. Taking the axe to the military budget could yield €3 billion.
But these solutions don’t fit the priorities of the current crop of EU leaders (with the notable exception of socialist-led France where at least the government has moved to impose a 75% tax on the incomes of the very rich). Their number one goal is to protect the billionaires, the corporations and the banks. And so, amid on the penury for ordinary people, plans roll on for blank cheques– including the 100 billion euro bailout of Spain’s reckless bankers –  underwritten by millions of ordinary Spaniards and their European brothers and sisters.
Opinion polls across the EU show a growing popular rejection of European governments and their neo-liberal policies. In Spain, almost three quarters of Spaniards disapprove of Mariano Rajoy’s handling of the country’s economy. More serious for Euro supporters, a majority in a nation that once was a bastion of support for the EU now think the Single Currency is bad for the economy. And if it can’t deliver on that, what’s the point of it at all? A question no doubt on the minds of a great many people in a Europe now in open revolt.

La revista norteamericana Counterpunch explica en este artículo cómo el pueblo europeo sufre y empieza a rebelarse contra las políticas de austeridad y cómo los presupuestos pueden equilibrarse simplemente cambiando las partidas de impuestos y gastos, de modo que los más ricos paguen más en proporción a sus ingresos, no como se hace ahora en que los pobres pagan los gastos de los ricos.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/09/28/europe-is-revolting/


Y sobre la única salida viable a medio plazo: la unión política.

Eurozone crisis Federalism or death!  28 September 2012  Le Point Paris            
  Angel Boligan
   For French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy, Europe has no option but advance towards the simple goal of political union. If not, the euro will die.
 Bernard-Henri Lévy  If there is no political Europe, the euro will die.
This death could take many forms and there may be many detours along the way.
It could be an explosion, an implosion, a slow death, a dissolution, or a division.
It could take two, three, five, ten years, and be preceded by a large number of remissions, which, on each occasion, give the impression that the worst has been avoided.
The trigger event might be the collapse of Greece, bludgeoned by austerity plans that are impossible to implement and unbearable for the people, or it might be sparked by some court of Karlsruhe that will refuse, in the name of Germany, to take on the unlimited risk prompted by the default of a member state.
But it will die. One way or another, if nothing happens, it will die. This is no longer a hypothesis, a vague fear, a red rag waved in the face of recalcitrant Europeans. It is a certainty. And this certainty is not only a logical deduction (that takes account of the absurd chimera of an abstract single currency cut adrift from economies, resources, and common taxation if things stay as they are) but also a historical one (all the situations over the last two centuries that are reminiscent of the crisis we are currently experiencing).
For the euro is not the West’s first experiment with a single currency. There have been at least six such initiatives, and although, as always, the different situations are not comparable, a narrative of these experiments is rich in instruction.
Two of them clearly failed, and they failed for reasons ranging from national egotism to disparities in development between countries, which could not, without union, speak the same monetary language (and in the first of these cases, the key episode was a default by none other than... Greece!). These two long-forgotten initiatives were the Latin Monetary Union (1865-1927) and the Scandinavian Monetary Union (1873-1914).
Two quickly and clearly succeeded  –  and if in both instances they succeeded, it was because the process of monetary union was accompanied by political union. This was the case of the Swiss franc, which, with the adoption of the 1848 constitution that founded the Swiss Confederation after half a century of hemming and hawing over the political price of economic union, replaced the different currencies until then minted by Switzerland’s various cities, cantons and territories. And it was also the victorious lira that triumphed, at the moment of Italian unification, over a myriad of currencies indexed on the coinage of German states, on the French franc, on Italy’s duchies and ancient republics.
Having groped in the dark, having retreated, having nearly failed, two thus succeeded. Yes, two invented a veritable single currency, but only after a thousand crises, setbacks, temporary repeals; and thanks to courageous leaders, who understood that a currency can only exist if sustained by truly common policies on budgets, taxation, the allocation of resources, labour laws, and all of the rules of the social game.
This is the story of the German gold mark, which prevailed, almost 40 years after the Zollverein of 1834, over the florins, thalers, Kronenthalers and other marks of the Hanseatic cities; and it is also the story of the dollar, which  –  and we cannot say this enough  – took 120 years to establish itself, and only truly came of age when it was decided to federalise the debt of the individual states of the Union.
The theorem is ineluctable.
Without federation, no single currency.
Without political unity, the currency will last for a few decades, and then, in the event of a war or a crisis, will crumble.
Without progress, in other words, towards the political integration identified as an obligation in every European treaty, but which no political leader, whether in France or Germany, appears to take seriously; without the surrender of competencies by nation states and an outright defeat of the "sovereigntists" who in reality are pushing peoples towards isolation and disaster, the euro will fall apart just as surely as the dollar would have done if the Confederate forces, for example, had won the American Civil War.
In days gone by, people used to say socialism or barbarism.
Today we must say: political union or barbarism.
Or better still: federalism or fragmentation  –  and with fragmentation, social regression, job insecurity, massive unemployment and poverty.
Or better still: Europe will either achieve the political integration without which no common currency has ever endured, or it will step out of history and sink into chaos.
We no longer have a choice: it is either political union or death.
All the rest  –  the ritual incantations of some, the short-term deals of the other, the solidarity fund thingy and stabilisation bank gizmo  –  will only serve to delay the moment of truth and prolong the illusion that the dying patient can still recover.
 

El conocido filósofo frances explica en su artículo cómo una unión federal es la única salida a la actual crisis europea.

http://www.presseurop.eu/en/content/article/2777551-federalism-or-death

[españavabien]

Aprovecho para subir este hilo y además preguntaros sobre vuestra opinión de las negociaciones de fusión entre EADS (Europa Continental aka Carolingios) y BAE Systems (UK).

Creo que es más importante de lo que se piensa y puede que tenga consecuencias muy importantes.

[Currobena]

TRAS MESES DE DEBATES INFRUCTUOSOS
 España, Francia, Alemania e Italia dejan atrás a UK y propondrán la 'tasa Tobin' Madrid y Roma se mostraban reticentes aunque finalmente han aceptado seguir adelante con la propuesta de gravar las transacciones financieras al 0,1%.  VOZPÓPULI (13:32)                                 Luis de Guindos con el ministro de Finanzas francés, Pierre Moscovici
 Foto:EFE    Un total de 11 países de la Unión Europea -entre los que se encuentran España, Italia, Alemania y Francia- han acordado este martes tras meses de debates infructuosos avanzar en solitario en la creación de una tasa a las transacciones financieras internacionales, cuyo objetivo es frenar la especulación y hacer que la banca asuma parte de los costes de la crisis, según recoge Europa Press.
El resto de Estados miembros se queda fuera de esta "cooperación reforzada" por considerar que la tasa provocará que la industria financiera se deslocalice fuera de la UE. "No estamos en contra de las tasas al sector financiero", ha dicho el ministro británico de Finanzas, George Osborne, que lidera a los países de este grupo. "Pero nuestra posición es que sólo consideraremos sumarnos si todos los centros financieros del mundo la implantan, como Nueva York, Singapur, Shanghái y Hong Kong", ha alegado Osborne durante el debate público.
El lanzamiento de la "cooperación reforzada", mecanismo que permite sortear el veto de países como Reino Unido, exigía la participación de al menos nueve Estados miembros. Hasta ayer, Alemania y Francia, promotores de la iniciativa, habían logrado convencer además a Portugal, Grecia, Eslovenia, Bélgica y Austria.
España e Italia, que en los debates anteriores habían anunciado que participarían en la tasa, se han resistido hasta el último momento. De hecho, el ministro de Economía, Luis de Guindos, no quiso adelantar ayer cuál sería la posición del Gobierno.
Pero en el debate de este martes han acabado sumándose otros cuatro países: además de Madrid y Roma, Estonia y Eslovaquia.
Según la propuesta de Bruselas, la tasa gravaría con un tipo del 0,1% las compraventas de acciones y bonos y con un tipo del 0,01% las de derivados. El nuevo impuesto, si se hubiera implantado en toda la UE, generaría unos ingresos de 55.000 millones de euros al año, y la Comisión quiere dedicar una parte a financiar el presupuesto de la UE.
Tanto Reino Unido como Polonia, que tampoco quieren implantar la tasa, han anunciado que no obstaculizarán su puesta en marcha en los países que así lo deseen, pero Osborne ha avisado de que podría provocar pérdidas por valor del 3,5% del PIB.
La puesta en marcha de la denominada tasa Tobin volverá a discutirse en la reunión de ministros de Economía del 12 de noviembre.
   URL:  [url=http://vozpopuli.com/economia/15381-espana-francia-alemania-e-italia-dejan-atras-a-uk-y-propondran-la-tasa-tobin]http://vozpopuli.com/economia/15381-espana-francia-alemania-e-italia-dejan-atras-a-uk-y-propondran-la-tasa-tobin   [/url]

El fin de la City se acerca...

[pringaete]

Este medio, alertadigital, no me inspira mucha confianza, pero últimamente hay muchos enlaces suyos en el foro shurmano. Este enlace no dice nada nuevo, pero está bien redactado y me parece interesante para difundir.
http://www.alertadigital.com/2012/10/11/espana-esta-siendo-utilizada-para-destruir-la-union-europea/

[pringaete]

No sabia donde dejar la noticia, ahi va

Nobel de la Paz para la UE:

http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2012/10/12/union_europea/1350032560.html

Primero a Obama, por no hacer nada, ahora a la UE. Este galardón tiene cada día menos valor o son cosas mías?
Os parece merecido?? Son premios "preventivos"??

Saludos

El thanks va porque estoy de acuerdo en que el premio Nobel ha perdido toda credibilidad.

Ahora bien, disiento en su apreciación. La UE sí se merece un premio Nobel de la paz por las razones que dio en su día Luisito2 en el foro shurmano, aquí se las dejo para las valore por ud. mismo:
http://www.burbuja.info/inmobiliaria/7185075-post23.html

(¡Es un premio Nobel a las abuelas!)

[pringaete]

Es que antes de poner un texto de Luisito2 tendría que haber avisado para los que no le conocen. Digamos que tiene cierta... propensión hacia la hipérbole. Para entender (no necesariamente compartir) lo que dice del beneficio económico de Alemania uno tiene haber leído sus tochos en el hilo -ir del foro shurmano durante algún tiempo. Él niega la mayor de forma habitual y tiene su propio discurso para todo el tema del capital y demás, así que tampoco hace falta tomar muy en cuenta ese punto. Desde su punto de vista sí es coherente esa negación, pero es secundaria a mi modo de ver.

Yo tampoco comparto lo que dice el texto al 100%, pero en su día el concepto fundamental de que la Unión de Abuelas Europeas ha forjado la gran paz europea me resultó bastante convincente, casi revelador y, porqué no decirlo, casi poético. Es por eso que me parece importante difundir esa concepción suya, sin que necesariamente comparta a pies juntillas el resto de planteamientos.

Porque en las guerras siempre mueren los hijos de los pobres, nada más.