France and Greece Election results!

[LadyWithEDS]

So, what do you think it means for Europe?

Greece is in desperate do do. I agree with Tillyminto, a weak rabble with little experience and less agreement with spell disaster. Greece is new to democracy and there are too many conflicting interests and too many parties.

Thinking about what claig has said up thread and the threat of a super state, I remember wondering why Brown, Blair and mandelson, clinton and much of his administration (rumsfied?)would insert the words "new world order" into almost every speech. What is meant by this? do they all refer to some common ideology and is this a phrase or a term also heard in Germany? and other countries in the EU?

Minim, with the new world order stuff, the problem is that you go from wondering what that is all about and the builderburger stuff, and now the Rome stuff, and then people go and talk about lizzards .

Sorry, not read much of this, but laughing at 'Greece is new to democracy'. Gosh, times have changed considering Grecce invented democracy in 400-odd bc:) I know this is not relevant to the discussion and will be back later to read fully.

Lizzards and aliens of course.

We know democracy started in Greece, I was making the point that many older people in Greece have lived under dictatorship, that is within their living memory.

What's so bad about a European superstate? It worked for Anerica didn't it? Tbh I'd much rather that than us all getting taken over by China.

Mergery, the theory is that there has been the attempt to create a European superstate, a North America superstate, an Asian superstate, and to them bring them all together for an eventual one world leader.

the countries are failing individually. its not the Euro making them overspend, its allowed it to happen.

but they dont want to stop overspending. and that applies whether they are in or out.

margerykemp

You ask 'What's so bad about a European superstate'.

Government has to be by consent. That's my main problem with the EU. There's no consent. The EU will fail because, like the Soviet union, it has no grass-roots support.

I agree with Hamster, Mandelson has said that we should have a referendum, would there be a majority in favour here of closer ties with the EU?

Would an EU super state be more or less democratic?

The fact that some far right parties are becoming more popular in Greece and even in France seems to suggest that people want to keep their national borders.

If Mandelson says we should have a referendum then I find myself wondering how he's going to rig it to get the result he wants.

Most Americans identify strongly with the idea of being American first (apart from the Texans ) whereas the Europeans really don't. In fact, I don't think most Europeans have any cultural bond to the idea of "Europe" at all. It's just not a natural fit.

Also, my personal feeling is that bigger may not be better going forward. Times are changing fast, and those that can adapt quickly will succeed. Democracy is not conducive to fast decisions in any situation, but worse in multi-layer systems. It's also bloody expensive. Not a popular opinion but one of the reasons for China's rapid rise is that it's not a democracy.

Now, I'm not saying "We're in the shit. Lets become a dictatorship" but I think we need to think about how democracy can operate effectively (i.e. so that a decision gets made and isn't tied up for years in layers of bickering, or made and then ignored by most of the parties who agreed it). Am fairly convinced that a European superstate will not meet that objective.

rich- In my experience people |I've know from non-UK europe do have a sense of being European, like a German woman I knew who moved to the UK from Africa because she wanted to 'move back to Europe'. I dont think British people would understand that, though.

lady- isn't the one global leader inevitable? i mean probably not in our lifetime but in the next 200 years? We have a global economy and global problems eg the environment, drugs, arms dealing, child porn, human trafficking which I dont see getting addressed without a few global laws and global economic policies. Most day to day decision should still be local/ regional/ national but I can see plenty of benefits to devolviong some powers up.

Flat- I dont think we've ever had government by consent anyway. most people dont vote. Only votes in marginal seats count. people end up with a coalition gov that no one wanted or voted for. votes are bought by costly election campaigns funded by wealthy business men who expect something in return. democracy's a joke.

European markets continuing to fall. And pound up against the Euro.

Thank God we stayed out of the Euro.

Richman - the reason for China's rise is not because it's not a democracy - it's because it has a huge population and is coming from a very low starting point. Had it been a democracy it would probably have reached that point earlier.

Name me genuinely successful dictatorship.

Just been speaking to a German who was brought up in the UK.

His dispasionate view was - Germans want the EU because of history and they want the Euro because it is allowing them to export a lot of things that they would not if they had a 'strong' Deutschemark. He said that what will happen is the EU/Euro will eventually disintegarte around the Germans rather than the Germans pulling the plug. The only thing that will change that is if the German 'man in the street' begins to feel that keeping it all together outweighs the benefits.

in other words, it could go either way, either a chaotic break-up or they get through it with a lot of pain for all concerned.

The news form Greece today is that the left wing parties are talking about a coalition and they definitley do not want austerity or to pay back the debt - so a default on all Greek debt looks likely. Not sure if that will end up with them being forced out of the Euro. Spain seems the next big card to fall with the Bankia collapse yesterday and a mass Spanish bank rescue being organised for Friday.

At what point does a dictatorship become a dictatorship? Even a dictatorship requires the backing of a significant proportion of people and the willingness to acquiesce of a significant majority. Did we live in a dictatorship in 1066, when pretty much everyone had to do what King William told them? When did our monarchy stop being a dictatorship? Is there a precise date when it is agreed that Parliament took on enough power that we no longer had a dictatorship? Or did that only count as ending when women got the vote? Is any system that does not allow universal suffrage a partial dictatorship?

How can you decide whether any dictatorship has ever been "successful" if it isn't entirely clear when a system becomes a dictatorship? We only seem to define it in terms of the regimes that are not benign, that doesn't mean that you couldn't actually view some more benign regimes as being pretty dictatorial...

1688 was when the king stopped being able to tell parliament what to do.

But I don't think you can say we are 100% a democracy now- 16 year olds, the homeless, prisoners etc still can't vote.

The ruling elite actually has more power over 'little people's lives now than at any time in history. We are a dictatorship in all but name.

Which sort of explains why a lot of Singaporeans tell me they're happy to live in a benevolent dictatorship. Their country would be called genuinely successful by most, too.

on a superficial note, i bought my ISA last year during the November Euro crisis because i thought it was overhyped.

its up about 10% today on November. looking at the FTSE100 shows gains over the same time period. i wonder if this is becoming more of a political/governmental issue than financial, which at least means countries can make their own decisions without pulling the whole lot down.

Spiraxis (sp?) is considering using the legal concept of 'odious debt' to avoid repayment. Interesting.....

LadyEDS U.K.gave some money to Ireland to help them out.

I can't believe the tin foil hat mod are out in force on here with their new world order, bilderberg group, tri-national committee conspiracy theories. How is you all have time to sit on the internet all day. Shouldn't you be busy prepping and pickling 10 years worth of food etc. etc.