howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
courtesy of the guardian.
Europe's sovereign debt crisis exploded back into life on Tuesday, with markets across the continent rocked by a wave of panic selling amid renewed fears about the impact of savage austerity measures in Spain and Italy.
The mood of uneasy calm seen across Europe since the Greek bailout in February was shattered as financial markets took fright at evidence of a double-dip recession and growing popular opposition to welfare cuts and tax increases.
Italy and Spain, the eurozone's third and fourth biggest economies, were at the centre of the market turmoil, with investors demanding an increasingly high premium for holding their bonds.
Guest 683- Registered: 11 Feb 2009
- Posts: 1,052
Add a Greek election in May and stir!
Bloody ingrates. We impose savage austerity on them and they dare to complain!!
Guest 688- Registered: 16 Jul 2009
- Posts: 268
The 'cradle of democracy' or the grave of the federal Euro project,discuss.

Guest 703- Registered: 30 Jul 2010
- Posts: 2,096
All the markets have been falling for the last week, the FTSE nearly reached 6,000 last month for the first time since the recession started but has since dropped back to around 5,600.
But - this morning they have started to rise again, big investors maybe realising they have become good long term value with the low prices.
Guest 703- Registered: 30 Jul 2010
- Posts: 2,096
"The Cradle of Democracy" and "The Grave of the Federal Euro Project", totally compatible concepts, not either or.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
You beat me too this Howard...
I have said before the the Euro crisis is not over and has just been dampened down by the recent actions.
Mark - their austerity is entirely to do with their own spendthrift ways. They cannot go on spending more than their income forever and chickens are coming home to roost. Would you lend someone money who is not showing any signs of getting their excessive spending under control? Who knows, maybe your pension fund has done so in the past and it (you) may lose out from default caused by their not mending their ways and taking adequate other corrective action like getting out of the Euro and devaluing some of their debt mountain.
We have a crisis here of government spending made worse by a failure to deal with the ill-conceived Euro.
Guest 725- Registered: 7 Oct 2011
- Posts: 1,418
The trouble is that the government are actually spending more in real terms when they promised to do the exact opposite.
Not helped by the new "conservatory tax" they want to bring in.
What a bunch of jokers.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
Hopefully the rubbish about the conservatory tax will be killed off by Tory ministers, an utterly absurd suggestion that shows how dangerous LibDems can be if not closely supervised by mental care staff.
You are correct Philip that spending in the UK is not only higher than when the Conservatives came into office it is higher than Osborne's original budget forecasts. We, alongside so much of the EU, must start to really cut our excessive rates of government spending. I am coming to the conclusion that Browns massive expansion of the benefits system must not only be curtailed but reversed. This unhealthy situation, with not only high benefit levels but with so many people receiving benefits, must be reversed and benefits actually cut. More people have to get back to living without state handouts. Naturally the genuinely disabled and elderly are excluded from this.
Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
another case of chocolait overdose,along with an easter glich.

Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
Mark, is your post an official EU statement to the economic crisis the EU has worked for and stands for?
Generally speaking, Britain's national debt (1 trillion W-heads), and the national debt of other EU states, and the private debts in Britain (3 trillion +), and in other EU countries, will NEVER be paid off in conventional ways.
These debts are only destined to increase until the end of the system.
The present economic system has a tag to it, an expiry date, and this date is long past.
Barry, you mention LibDems somewhere in the context, and spending cuts.
There is no party among those known to the general public in Britain that knows how to solve the economic crisis, no party that can bring on Prosperity.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
The way to do that Alexander is to do exactly what you would not want the government to do. The Conservatives certainly know what should be done even if they are not willing to brave the political storm and defy the Libdems to do it.
Sad that cheap populist politics has to come before the economy.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
Count me out of politics, Barry.
The Conservatives chose to go their own way, somewhere along some torturous route in the mountains, telling people to carry rocks on their shoulders, and conveniently blaming Labour and their Coalition partners the LibDems for everything.
I buried politics under a stone! I am a free man.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
Facts are facts Alexander.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
Indeed, Barry, and these facts have been spelled out by me in the two above posts.
RIP politics.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
things must have got bad for you to quit ukip alex, wasn't long ago you were walking around here with half a hundredweight of leaflets exhorting us all to vote for them.
just to appease our modern european friends 25 kilograms approximately.
Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
only 25 kilos howard,should have been 70 kilos.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
i thought you would be on my case if i didn't put the metric figure brian.
had to do a bit of mental arithmetic.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
Howard, that was a local by-election for one town-council seat, UKIP candidate Vic Matcham did fairly well coming third place, beating LibDems into fourth in Dover Town.
But 14 months later, third place in national scrutiny for a party, that perhaps is fourth place after the LibDems, somewhere around there anyway, will not get us anywhere.
I love life too much to waste it away being annoyed by endless torturing from cynical ministers up top, telling us that we will only suffer, suffer and suffer, for many years to come.
I want to dedicate myself to Kent, we had once our own Kingdom, in the good old days of King Ethelbert the first English Christian king, even if the Roman-philes in the C/E have tried to replace him with Augustine.
In fact Ethelbert's wife, Queen Bertha, converted him, not the Roman Augustine.
But politics! trying to make people worship some institution that came along later and claimed the fruits of others. It was King Ethelbert who allowed Augustine to become a bishop in Canterbury, not the pope!
Why should someone else from a world institution always come along and claim the fruits of other people's merits and turn it all around and say "we did it!" "we gave to you, and you gave nothing!"
Prosperity comes from High and from Kent. Sod politics!
Guest 703- Registered: 30 Jul 2010
- Posts: 2,096
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
that will be interesting a three way cobbled together government, and without the help of the single alternative vote.