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Why don't we leave the EU? Join the Swiss in EFTA

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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 199 ✭✭DaBrow


    I didn't ask for you to link to some pages of statistics, I asked (sixth time) why do you repeatedly cite price levels when it suits you, salary levels when it suits you, but never combine them to give a truthful picture?

    Posting a few links now to a few pages of statistics does not change that you have been consistently selective with those same statistics up until now, nor does it explain why you have been consistently selective with those same statistics up until now.

    I will tell you this.... The Quality of life in the EU is lower than the EFTA and the salaries are lower in the EU.

    These facts don't suit me at all, they are reality... Things in the Eurozone are more expensive than anywhere else in the EU and price fixing is protected.

    You're big enough to find a comparison yourself, happy hunting.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 19,777 ✭✭✭✭The Corinthian


    DaBrow wrote: »
    I will tell you this.... The Quality of life in the EU is lower than the EFTA and the salaries are lower in the EU.
    Quality of life is lower in the EU than EFTA? Where did you get that? Even a quick Google will return a few recent lists that all put EU nations at the top of the league, so I have to ask where you are getting your data or if you are just inventing it.

    But first I would prefer if you answered my repeatedly asked question (seventh time) of why do you repeatedly cite price levels when it suits you, salary levels when it suits you, but never combine them to give a truthful picture?
    These facts don't suit me at all, they are reality... Things in the Eurozone are more expensive than anywhere else in the EU and price fixing is protected.
    Do you have any idea how stupid that sounds? You deride the Eurozone for high prices, yet you will find that EFTA nations have in reality the highest prices.

    Others have pointed out the facts to you and you simply seem to be ignoring them, which leads me to believe that these are in reality those facts that do not suit you at all.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 199 ✭✭DaBrow


    Do you have any idea how stupid that sounds? You deride the Eurozone for high prices, yet you will find that EFTA nations have in reality the highest prices.

    Correction, Iceland is now cheaper than anywhere in the Eurozone and it is an EFTA State.

    Also, when was the last time you went to McDonalds?
    An Irish Big Mac Meal is €6.00 and only £3.99 in the UK.... That would make it $7.98 in US Dollars on Irish Soil.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,609 ✭✭✭Flamed Diving


    DaBrow wrote: »
    Correction, Iceland is now cheaper than anywhere in the Eurozone and it is an EFTA State.

    Also, when was the last time you went to McDonalds?
    An Irish Big Mac Meal is €6.00 and only £3.99 in the UK.... That would make it $7.98 in US Dollars on Irish Soil.

    The Big Mac Index does not use the Big Mac Meal as a unit of measure... and you still don't seem to get the point.

    It is a simple illustration of how PPP works, made so anyone can understand it.
    An example of one measure of PPP is the Big Mac Index popularized by The Economist, which looks at the prices of a Big Mac burger in McDonald's restaurants in different countries. If a Big Mac costs US$4 in the United States and GBP£3 in the United Kingdom, the PPP exchange rate would be £3 for $4. The Big Mac Index is presumably useful because it is based on a well-known good whose final price, easily tracked in many countries, includes input costs from a wide range of sectors in the local economy, such as agricultural commodities (beef, bread, lettuce, cheese), labor (blue and white collar), advertising, rent and real estate costs, transportation, etc. The Big Mac Index is inaccurate in certain cases because of the different market conditions that exist in differing McDonald's locations. For instance, a Big Mac in downtown Chicago is likely to be priced higher than one in Wisconsin. Such pricing differences existing in one country demonstrate the imperfection of the Big Mac Index. In addition, in some emerging economies western fast food represents an expensive niche product price well above the price of traditional staples - i.e. the Big Mac is not a mainstream 'cheap' meal as it is in the west but a luxury import for the middle classes and foreigners. Although it is not perfect, the index still offers significant insight and an easy example to the understanding of PPP.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchasing_power_parity#Big_Mac_Index

    PPP FAQs:
    3. How are PPPs calculated?

    The easiest way to see how a PPP is calculated is to consider a product which is identical in two countries. A simple example would be a litre of Coca-Cola. If it costs 2.3 euros in France and $2.00 in America then the PPP for Coca-Cola between France and the USA is 2.3/2.00, or 1.15. This means that for every dollar spent on a litre of Coca-Cola in the USA, 1.15 euros would have to be spent in France to obtain the same quantity and quality - or, in other words, the same volume - of Coca-Cola. PPPs are not only calculated for individual products; they are also calculated for various groups of products (e.g., refreshments, vegetables) where PPPs are a geometric average of price relatives of various products in the group.

    http://www.oecd.org/faq/0,3433,en_2649_34357_1799281_1_1_1_1,00.html


  • Registered Users Posts: 23,283 ✭✭✭✭Scofflaw


    DaBrow wrote: »
    Correction, Iceland is now cheaper than anywhere in the Eurozone and it is an EFTA State.

    Also, when was the last time you went to McDonalds?
    An Irish Big Mac Meal is €6.00 and only £3.99 in the UK.... That would make it $7.98 in US Dollars on Irish Soil.

    Let's do the minimum wage comparison again!

    Item|UK|ROI|Ratio
    Big Mac Meal|3.99|6.00|0.67
    Minimum Wage|5.93|8.65|0.69


    Suspiciously close again...of course, you can't get a Big Mac in Iceland any more, because their currency collapsed and McDonalds pulled out, claiming that costs would drive the price of a Big Mac up above the price in Switzerland, which is the most expensive Big Mac anywhere (and a little ahead of Norway). Still, I'm sure they remain a viable comparison...

    trivially,
    Scofflaw


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 19,777 ✭✭✭✭The Corinthian


    DaBrow wrote: »
    Correction, Iceland is now cheaper than anywhere in the Eurozone and it is an EFTA State.
    Again with the cherry picking - so you ignore that both Norway and Switzerland (and by extension Lichtenstein) are more expensive and then focus on Iceland as being cheaper - without giving any evidence of this I may add. What are salary levels like nowadays in Iceland, while we're on the subject?

    So any chance you are ever going to respond as to (eighth time) of why do you repeatedly cite price levels when it suits you, salary levels when it suits you, but never combine them to give a truthful picture?

    Is there a reason you cannot respond to that question?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 391 ✭✭BetterLisbon


    Going all the way back to the original post. To leave the EU and join EFTa would require the kind of political vision that took us out of the british union.
    I just dont see that happening with the clientelist political system we have that pits all 43 constituencies against each other for a slice of the cake. This system promotes shoe shine boys who kiss ass in return for sweeteners for their voters. The EU is a honeypot full of such sweeteners.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 199 ✭✭DaBrow


    Scofflaw wrote: »
    Let's do the minimum wage comparison again!

    Item|UK|ROI|Ratio
    Big Mac Meal|3.99|6.00|0.67
    Minimum Wage|5.93|8.65|0.69

    Suspiciously close again...of course, you can't get a Big Mac in Iceland any more, because their currency collapsed and McDonalds pulled out, claiming that costs would drive the price of a Big Mac up above the price in Switzerland, which is the most expensive Big Mac anywhere (and a little ahead of Norway). Still, I'm sure they remain a viable comparison...

    trivially,
    Scofflaw

    McDonalds didn't even have a strong presence in Iceland... They were franchises and there were only a couple in that country anyway.

    The main reason was that Iceland doesn't have a strong agriculture sector in regard to cattle based meat, they imported their ingredients which led to their decision of departing.

    An Irish Big Mac Meal is about 30% more expensive than over the border... I doubt any eurozone nation McDonalds is the same value as a UK McDonalds or cheaper.


  • Registered Users Posts: 43,311 ✭✭✭✭K-9


    Going all the way back to the original post. To leave the EU and join EFTa would require the kind of political vision that took us out of the british union.
    I just dont see that happening with the clientelist political system we have that pits all 43 constituencies against each other for a slice of the cake. This system promotes shoe shine boys who kiss ass in return for sweeteners for their voters. The EU is a honeypot full of such sweeteners.

    What sweeteners are these?

    DaBrow wrote: »
    McDonalds didn't even have a strong presence in Iceland... They were franchises and there were only a couple in that country anyway.

    The main reason was that Iceland doesn't have a strong agriculture sector in regard to cattle based meat, they imported their ingredients which led to their decision of departing.

    An Irish Big Mac Meal is about 30% more expensive than over the border... I doubt any eurozone nation McDonalds is the same value as a UK McDonalds or cheaper.

    Of course with Devaluation, imports do cost more, something that would happen here too.

    Mad Men's Don Draper : What you call love was invented by guys like me, to sell nylons.



  • Registered Users Posts: 4,927 ✭✭✭dogbert27


    DaBrow wrote: »
    An Irish Big Mac Meal is about 30% more expensive than over the border... I doubt any eurozone nation McDonalds is the same value as a UK McDonalds or cheaper.

    Oh please show me your maths on coming to that 30% figure! Seeing as you can't answer a simple question after being asked 8 times I won't hold my breath, I'll assume that you failed to use a currency converter!

    So, once again:
    McDonalds Meal = €6.00 in ROI
    McDonalds Meal = £3.99 in NI = €4.60

    Price difference is €1.40, in percentage terms 23%

    McDonalds is considered a luxury item so we pay full VAT on the purchase
    therefore McDonalds meal before VAT:

    ROI = €6.00 - 21% VAT of €1.26 = €4.74
    NI = €4.60 - 17.5% VAT of €0.80 = €3.80

    Price difference is €0.94, in percentage terms 15.67%

    And once again we have to look at the costs for a McDonalds franchise in ROI compared to a McDonalds franchise NI:

    Minimum wage NI = £5.80 = €6.70
    Minimum wage ROI = €8.65

    Overheads need to covered:
    Light and Heat - more expensive in ROI than NI
    Rental Rates - more expensive in ROI than NI
    Insurance - more expensive in ROI than NI
    Telephone & Broadband - more expensive in ROI than NI
    Council Rates - more expensive in ROI than NI

    At what point do you start feeling that your argument is foolish?


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,718 ✭✭✭SkepticOne


    K-9 wrote: »
    Of course with Devaluation, imports do cost more, something that would happen here too.
    This is similar to the "race to the bottom" argument trade unionists use against cutting costs.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,056 ✭✭✭maggy_thatcher


    SkepticOne wrote: »
    This is similar to the "race to the bottom" argument trade unionists use against cutting costs.

    Are you disagreeing that devaluation wouldn't cause import costs to go up?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,609 ✭✭✭Flamed Diving


    Are you disagreeing that devaluation wouldn't cause import costs to go up?

    Exports costs would fall too, so there would be some balance, in theory, but...

    The cost of servicing our Euro-denominated debt would increase, meaning certain default or IMF intervention. Some people seem to be in continual denial as to the immediate damage such actions would inflict. It's as plain as day, yet they fail to see it.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,210 ✭✭✭20goto10


    DaBrow wrote: »
    Irish Politics has corruption, this might have something to do with the legacy of partition but the fact is that the EU Corruption makes us look like amateurs.

    Ireland has its problems because we are just lazy to tackle it... Why Bertie Ahern isn't in Jail is beyond me especially with that rubbish he spouted about not having a bank account for years as a minister of finance, that he cashed his pay cheques in pubs etc in the Mahon Tribunal.

    The EU hasn't had its accounts auditied for over a dozen years; how on earth can you think that being run a by group of foreign diplomats who know nothing about Ireland be better than having our own country?

    We'd have a nice country: If we had compotent people in power, Freedom to conduct our own soverign affairs without external bullying and Punishing corruption no matter who it is or where it happened.

    Let me put it another way. Name all the good things that have happened to this country in the past 20 years, now think was that due to the EU or due to our Irish government? Now name all the bad things that have happened to this country in the past 20 years and ask yourself who is responsible. The pros are with the EU and the cons are with the Irish "political" system. Irish politics is about back handers and favours. It's about milking the people dry and covering up corruption. The EU has done a great job at introducing laws and regulations that makes our lives as a whole a great deal better. We need more of it. Out with the old and in with the new.

    btw, I fail to see what relavency an EU politicians nationality has to do with anything. I have no problem with German, French, Swedish or low and behold even British politicians making decions which affect Ireland so long as they are the right decisions. And so far they've got it spot on. I might also ad that for such a small country we have had a big influence at an EU level and still do, albeit a bit dented recently.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 199 ✭✭DaBrow


    dogbert27 wrote: »
    Oh please show me your maths on coming to that 30% figure! Seeing as you can't answer a simple question after being asked 8 times I won't hold my breath, I'll assume that you failed to use a currency converter!

    So, once again:
    McDonalds Meal = €6.00 in ROI
    McDonalds Meal = £3.99 in NI = €4.60

    Price difference is €1.40, in percentage terms 23%

    McDonalds is considered a luxury item so we pay full VAT on the purchase
    therefore McDonalds meal before VAT:

    ROI = €6.00 - 21% VAT of €1.26 = €4.74
    NI = €4.60 - 17.5% VAT of €0.80 = €3.80

    Price difference is €0.94, in percentage terms 15.67%

    And once again we have to look at the costs for a McDonalds franchise in ROI compared to a McDonalds franchise NI:

    Minimum wage NI = £5.80 = €6.70
    Minimum wage ROI = €8.65

    Overheads need to covered:
    Light and Heat - more expensive in ROI than NI
    Rental Rates - more expensive in ROI than NI
    Insurance - more expensive in ROI than NI
    Telephone & Broadband - more expensive in ROI than NI
    Council Rates - more expensive in ROI than NI

    At what point do you start feeling that your argument is foolish?

    €6.00 was a few days ago £5.17... So the difference for a £3.99/£4 Big Mac Meal in Ireland was £1.17.

    Add £1.18/7 more to £3.99 (=£5.17) and that is an increase of almost 30% more.

    VAT rates in Ireland are stupid considering the climate we are in and I remember when things were cheaper with the Punt.

    Prices inflated wildly when we stupidly adopted the Euro; I know things are more expensive in Ireland but that doesn't excuse why we should be ripping off our own people when they are the heaviest hit in this recession.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 19,777 ✭✭✭✭The Corinthian


    DaBrow wrote: »
    €6.00 was a few days ago £5.17... So the difference for a £3.99/£4 Big Mac Meal in Ireland was £1.17.

    Add £1.18/7 more to £3.99 (=£5.17) and that is an increase of almost 30% more.
    Why? That makes no sense whatsoever. Additionally you appear to still be intentionally ignoring everything that has been said to you with regards to salaries and other production costs when making comparisons. Do you have difficulty understanding this?
    VAT rates in Ireland are stupid considering the climate we are in and I remember when things were cheaper with the Punt.
    We have complete control on our VAT rates - it has nothing to do with either the Euro or the EU.

    Again, (ninth time) why do you repeatedly cite price levels when it suits you, salary levels when it suits you, but never combine them to give a truthful picture?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 35 Henry McConville


    The debate rages on. I serioulsly cannot understand how anyone could fathom that we would be better off outside of the EU. We would be in a far worse situation!


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,927 ✭✭✭dogbert27


    DaBrow wrote: »
    €6.00 was a few days ago £5.17... So the difference for a £3.99/£4 Big Mac Meal in Ireland was £1.17.

    Add £1.18/7 more to £3.99 (=£5.17) and that is an increase of almost 30% more.

    WTF? You are using a currency exchange rate from a few days ago without a) saying what day exactly and b) what the exchange rate was.

    We can all go back in time an cherry pick a day with a certain exchange rate to suit our arguments. You raised this point yesterday and are continuing today to back your argument so you have to use the current exchange rate to validate your argument.

    DaBrow wrote: »
    VAT rates in Ireland are stupid considering the climate we are in

    Who sets the VAT rate in this country? Our VAT rate has nothing to do with being a member of the EU.
    DaBrow wrote: »
    and I remember when things were cheaper with the Punt.
    Like when a bag of Tayto cost 7p and you could buy a half a penny sweet over the counter?
    That was the 80's. Even with the punt going into the 90's all these items increased in price. We are now in 2010. Get with the times.
    DaBrow wrote: »
    Prices inflated wildly when we stupidly adopted the Euro.
    A general throw away comment. Back it up.
    DaBrow wrote: »
    I know things are more expensive in Ireland but that doesn't excuse why we should be ripping off our own people when they are the heaviest hit in this recession.
    It's not an excuse. It's a fact. Costs have to be met. Do you expect shops and companies to be operating at a loss?
    The costs of business is something that this government has control over. Not the EU.


  • Registered Users Posts: 156 ✭✭sirromo


    I found a good article (here) written by the Czech president Vaclav Klaus in which he offers his opinion on whether the euro is likely to collapse.

    The key points made in the article
    1. The euro is under severe pressure but it's not likely to collapse. Too much political capital has been invested so far for the project to be abandoned now.
    2. The euro project has already failed in the sense that the benefits predicted by its proponents have failed to materialise.
    3. The eurozone is not an optimum currency area. The euro was adopted for political rather than economic reasons.
    4. The smooth and painless introduction of the euro led to the premature belief that the new currency was a success. Many people failed to take into the account the long-term viability of the currency.
    5. The euro has not greatly contributed to the homogenization of the eurozone economies.
    6. The euro has not greatly protected eurozone countries from external shocks.
    7. The costs of operating a sub-optimal currency area will continue to rise for eurozone members. The eurozone could end up being in a similar position to post-unification Germany with the wealthier and more stable countries being in the position of west-Germany and the PIGs being in the position of the former east-Germany.
    8. Countries like the Czech republic should consider themselves fortunate that they decided to stick with their own currency.

    On the expectation that the euro would help boost economic growth in the eurozone countries:
    It's completely self-evident that nothing of the sort has materialized. After the birth of the eurozone, the economic growth of the eurozone has decelerated even in comparison with the previous, unspectacular decades. We have seen a new increase of the gap between this growth rate and the growth rate of other major economic centers such as the U.S., China and other countries of Southeastern Asia, various third-world countries across all continents, but also the Central and Eastern European countries outside the eurozone.

    The economic growth in the current member countries of the eurozone has been slowing down since the 1950s and 1960s and the euro hasn't altered this trend in any way. According to the European Central Bank data (ECB Statistics Pocket Book, March 2010), the average annual GDP growth in these countries was 3.4% in the 1970s, 2.4% in the 1980s, 2.2% in the 1990s, and only 1.1% in the "decade of the euro", more precisely between 2001 and 2009. Such dynamics doesn't take place in other regions of the world.


    Then there's the inflation rate:
    Another expected goal hasn't occurred: the inflation rate of the eurozone hasn't dropped. Two distinct groups of countries have emerged within the eurozone: one of them has a low inflation rate while the other - Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, and a few others - have a higher inflation rate. Long-term imbalances of the trade surpluses and deficits have also increased. The export-dominated countries have been separated from the countries that run trade deficits (it's no coincidence that it's the countries with the highest inflation rate). No homogenization of the eurozone has been achieved by its creation.


    On the likelihood of the euro being abandoned:
    My answer to this question is No. So much political capital has been invested to the shared European currency as a gluing element of the increasingly supernational European Union that this currency will certainly not be abolished - at least not in any future that is imaginable for me. It will continue but the price of its survival will be extremely high. It will be paid by the citizens of the eurozone (and, indirectly, some other Europeans as well - those who have kept its own currency). The price will be something that is hard to quantify from an individual perspective - namely the long-term deceleration of the economic growth which will be an obvious economic loss relatively to our growth potential as well as the development in other regions of the globe.


    He provides an interesting quote from the former Polish finance minister on why his country is better off for not having adopted the euro.
    "One important reason for this is that, as a non-member of the euro, Poland has been able to profit from flexibility of the zloty exchange rate in a way that has helped growth and lowered the current account deficit without importing inflation." He adds that "The decade-long story of peripheral euro members drastically losing competitiveness has been a salutary lesson." I think that this sentence needs no further clarifications.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,718 ✭✭✭SkepticOne


    The debate rages on. I serioulsly cannot understand how anyone could fathom that we would be better off outside of the EU. We would be in a far worse situation!
    See sirromo's post above.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,609 ✭✭✭Flamed Diving


    SkepticOne wrote: »
    See sirromo's post above.

    I read it. I'm still awaiting a convincing argument.


  • Registered Users Posts: 23,283 ✭✭✭✭Scofflaw


    The debate rages on. I serioulsly cannot understand how anyone could fathom that we would be better off outside of the EU. We would be in a far worse situation!

    Ideally, you start with the view that we would be better off outside the EU. You then adduce every correlation that bolsters your argument, reject those that don't, and assume or disclaim causation as required.

    cordially,
    Scofflaw


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,241 ✭✭✭baalthor


    SkepticOne wrote: »
    See sirromo's post above.

    The post gives reasons why a country should not join the euro.

    We have joined so the anti-euro people need to provide convincing arguments demonstrating why we should unilaterally leave.

    Most of the "let's leave the euro" arguments so far are a bit like telling Titanic passengers that they can avoid disaster by jumping overboard into the North Atlantic before the ship hits the iceberg.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,718 ✭✭✭SkepticOne


    baalthor wrote: »
    Most of the "let's leave the euro" arguments so far are a bit like telling Titanic passengers that they can avoid disaster by jumping overboard into the North Atlantic before the ship hits the iceberg.
    An unfortunate choice of metaphor if you are on the pro-Euro side.


  • Registered Users Posts: 43,311 ✭✭✭✭K-9


    SkepticOne wrote: »
    An unfortunate choice of metaphor if you are on the pro-Euro side.

    The reason we are the Titanic isn't the Euro and round and round we go.

    Mad Men's Don Draper : What you call love was invented by guys like me, to sell nylons.



  • Closed Accounts Posts: 199 ✭✭DaBrow


    K-9 wrote: »
    The reason we are the Titanic isn't the Euro and round and round we go.

    I agree with you.

    The Euro isn't the titanic. Ireland (The Titanic) made bad choices (like adopting the euro and allowing wild inflation) made us hit an iceberg despite the warnings which went unheaded, but the euro is the Bismarck... It will sink itself.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,718 ✭✭✭SkepticOne


    Personally I think we've already hit the iceberg. The situations that Euro mechanisms like the stability and growth pact were supposedly designed guard against have now occurred. It is hard to see how, for example, Greece are going to get out of their current difficulties no matter what course of action they now adopt. Likewise when the contagion spreads to Ireland there will be nothing we can do. The only question now is do we get in the lifeboat or do we go down with the ship.


  • Registered Users Posts: 14,685 ✭✭✭✭BlitzKrieg


    but the euro is the Bismarck... It will sink itself.

    another bad analogy when you consider that the bismarck scuttled itself because it was so well built that the british couldnt sink it.

    :D


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 199 ✭✭DaBrow


    BlitzKrieg wrote: »
    another bad analogy when you consider that the bismarck scuttled itself because it was so well built that the british couldnt sink it.

    :D

    It wasn't unsinkable either... Well built yes but it was still vulnerable to its own flaws that weren't monitored, neither did it possess any contingency plans to deal with particular scenarios happening. Which would have exploited their own weaknesses against themselves.

    That's what sank the ship and the same thing will happen to the Euro


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