Sorry to be the bringer of bad news but here goes..........Buy farmland or a smallholding,self sufficiency in food,solar panels with battery backup , water borehole, poly tunnels, four large chest freezers for storing last years crop,back up generator,wood burning stove,become part of a local network of like minded people,and invest in hard money.I saw this 15 years ago coming and I've been able to help others who listened. The whole system is going down and they are not telling you the truth.The cities will be war zones with little or no police protection.So if you can relocate now to as remote a place you can and prepare do so .Also this is a wide world collapse so where ever you go it will be bad. Im not a doomsday nutter Im a level headed guy who thinks ahead.
It's ok, Millwall away was last week & we're not playing them again until March, so it's safe to come out.
Leroy I'm not a doom-monger. I've read your posts mate and you are one of the posters on here thats got a clear picture of things. Where I live is very hard to get to and there is safety in numbers up here as we are all of the same mindset. There will be survivors so I'm going to give it a go.
Sorry to be the bringer of bad news but here goes..........Buy farmland or a smallholding,self sufficiency in food,solar panels with battery backup , water borehole, poly tunnels, four large chest freezers for storing last years crop,back up generator,wood burning stove,become part of a local network of like minded people,and invest in hard money.I saw this 15 years ago coming and I've been able to help others who listened. The whole system is going down and they are not telling you the truth.The cities will be war zones with little or no police protection.So if you can relocate now to as remote a place you can and prepare do so .Also this is a wide world collapse so where ever you go it will be bad. Im not a doomsday nutter Im a level headed guy who thinks ahead.
According to a lot of people on CL it's not world wide - it's all down to Tony Blair! :-)
Sorry to be the bringer of bad news but here goes..........Buy farmland or a smallholding,self sufficiency in food,solar panels with battery backup , water borehole, poly tunnels, four large chest freezers for storing last years crop,back up generator,wood burning stove,become part of a local network of like minded people,and invest in hard money.I saw this 15 years ago coming and I've been able to help others who listened. The whole system is going down and they are not telling you the truth.The cities will be war zones with little or no police protection.So if you can relocate now to as remote a place you can and prepare do so .Also this is a wide world collapse so where ever you go it will be bad. Im not a doomsday nutter Im a level headed guy who thinks ahead.
Really hope this doesn't happen before they release Grand Theft Auto 5
Ps suppose you're hoping the end of civilization happens when you're not at a game at the Valley....that would be a bugger.
Leroy I'm not a doom-monger. I've read your posts mate and you are one of the posters on here thats got a clear picture of things. Where I live is very hard to get to and there is safety in numbers up here as we are all of the same mindset. There will be survivors so I'm going to give it a go.
Sorry, whereabouts in the east stand is this place? ;-)
I would say that, in a capitalist economy, that the crashes are caused by greed AND the booms are caused by greed. Whilst ever people have confidence that their 'greed' will be rewarded by prosperity in the future, the boom will continue, when that confidence goes, we get a crash.
Greed (or, maybe better to say 'ambition') is an important part of the system either way.
In this regard, I would say that the main trigger was inept government intervention (particularly in the UK with regards to Northern Rock) which gave the impression that the banks did not understand the risk that they had been taking. This was never true, in fact the banks were and are amazingly good at assessing risk.
This impression prompted a market reaction that was quite out of proportion to the levels of loan defaults that were ever really likely. To give you an example, I know several businesses that, at the heart of the crisis, made a very good living out of calling several mortgage lenders' customers to say: "We would like you to remortgage right now, and if you will agree to do so, we will simply give you 30% off your mortgage debt. So you had a mortgage of £100k, it is now £70k."
These kind of calls actually required incredible levels of skill to do well, because, unsurprisingly, most people thought it was a scam - it was not, the banks simply needed to prove to the markets that their loans had a real, defined value!
I will always maintain that we have one of the very best retail banking systems in the world. The government has used the industry as a scapegoat which has led to a public attitude that 'bankers' are a bunch of bunglers and crooks. This has never been true (certainly no more true than in any industry) and if we over-regulate the lending sector, then we will do immense damage to our economy.
Really where did this happen? I've heard of second lien loans being discharged. There would be no reason for a bank to mark to market the value of a home below market value, when they're going to be paid back the mortgage or the housing market is buoyant enough for them to receive easily 70% of the value of the home in a repossesion then sale scenario. I'll be happily proved wrong if there's any real evidence out there that this happened on scale.
As for risk management, none of the UK banks come out of the crash well. Whilst there is clear evidence that Goldman Sach's played the market with CDO's and CDS's, and covered their dealings with AIG with other organisations, that's hardly the case with Barclay's: who had one of the biggest payouts from the US government who fulfilled AIG's obligations. LTCM, NatWest Markets, Drexel Burnham Lambert, HBoS, RBS and ABN Amro, and Lehman Brothers are pretty clear examples against your belief of good risk management. LTCM is a classic example of where the statistical model did not account for pre-war volatility in markets. People and organisations time and time again do not account for catastrophic volatility. Banks are great at papering over risk assessments when the market is growing. Not so great when there's a crash. Government intervention prevented large scale foreclosures in the UK, but really US QE prevented it. Without that your shit-whistle risk assessments, would have meant countless bankruptcies and repossessions.
It's quite laughable to say that the UK government intervention had any long term effect on markets with regards to Northern Rock. They couldn't meet their borrowing needs, due to the freeze in international money markets. Their business model was dead, because of the market, and would have been dead at any point the boom was over in property regardless of government: as would have been Halifax's. The shock waves were in the system. The issue here as seriously red touches upon is that when you steroid up an economy, to avoid or blast out of crashes, many companies are not held to account for their poor performance. Bad practices are uncovered in recessions, if you save LTCM and rape emerging Asian market economies with fire-sale privatizations, who pays the price? If you don't accept the idiotic investments made under the dot-com era boom, and en-rich the rich with huge tax gimmes, who suffers for bad investments? The monetarist zealots need constant bailouts. The market's perfect pricing system, left to it's own, creates huge crashes. Some people remember the lessons, or some people suffer the repercussions. Clearly few big financial companies suffered the consequences of Drexel, Salomon and Merril from the 80's and early 90's market problems, during the second Clinton admin to Bush jnr's last few years.
If you don't allow the consequences of crashes to unfold, and implement regulation to prevent fraud and control fraud then a bounce will follow with a bigger crash. Spending more than you earn for twelve odd years, without successful raping and pillaging or productivity increases, leads to huge market problems. It's laughable to think government intervention of Northern Rock or any other institution is going to turn the tide of market forces, until government backs the whole financial system. As if any major player would have accepted that in 2007, and if they did four-seven years later a bigger crash would happen.
Sorry to be the bringer of bad news but here goes..........Buy farmland or a smallholding,self sufficiency in food,solar panels with battery backup , water borehole, poly tunnels, four large chest freezers for storing last years crop,back up generator,wood burning stove,become part of a local network of like minded people,and invest in hard money.I saw this 15 years ago coming and I've been able to help others who listened. The whole system is going down and they are not telling you the truth.The cities will be war zones with little or no police protection.So if you can relocate now to as remote a place you can and prepare do so .Also this is a wide world collapse so where ever you go it will be bad. Im not a doomsday nutter Im a level headed guy who thinks ahead.
Sorry to be the bringer of bad news but here goes..........Buy farmland or a smallholding,self sufficiency in food,solar panels with battery backup , water borehole, poly tunnels, four large chest freezers for storing last years crop,back up generator,wood burning stove,become part of a local network of like minded people,and invest in hard money.I saw this 15 years ago coming and I've been able to help others who listened. The whole system is going down and they are not telling you the truth.The cities will be war zones with little or no police protection.So if you can relocate now to as remote a place you can and prepare do so .Also this is a wide world collapse so where ever you go it will be bad. Im not a doomsday nutter Im a level headed guy who thinks ahead.
When you put it like that it makes US gun law seem more rational.
Sorry to be the bringer of bad news but here goes..........Buy farmland or a smallholding,self sufficiency in food,solar panels with battery backup , water borehole, poly tunnels, four large chest freezers for storing last years crop,back up generator,wood burning stove,become part of a local network of like minded people,and invest in hard money.I saw this 15 years ago coming and I've been able to help others who listened. The whole system is going down and they are not telling you the truth.The cities will be war zones with little or no police protection.So if you can relocate now to as remote a place you can and prepare do so .Also this is a wide world collapse so where ever you go it will be bad. Im not a doomsday nutter Im a level headed guy who thinks ahead.
Inspirational
To go ever so slightly off topic here, how much does Andrew Lincoln look like Aragorn in that photo?
When I was at Uni long ago, I was fascinated by how certain fellow students were drawn into the far left groups and became totally consumed by them. They lost all sense of proportion, and had certain lines that they always parroted. So when there was a Student Union motion attacking price increases in the canteen, they would get up there and parrot, with a straight face "This cannot be seen in isolashun, but as part of the wider struggle to kick out this Tory guvernment 'n' replace it with a Labour guvernment pledged to Soshulist policees."
They were, temporarily I hope, fanatics.
When I watch and listen to Farage turning every single issue into something that has the hated EU and the essential referendum as the answer to every political problem, he makes me think of those students.
He's a fanatic. Genial, a good speaker, with a harmless eccentric looking face, but a fanatic.
The stuff you referred me to is also the work of a fanatic.
The EU was created to try and ensure that fanaticism never again took control of Europe as it did in the 1930's.
By all means criticise its policies, its structures. But do it from a point of view of being part of it, a citizen of Europe.
And don't forget to start with what goes on in your own backyard. Because if you are pissed off with your NHS, your train service, the rip off prices for all your utilities, and most of all, the financial crisis, if you blame all that on the EU you despise, you are letting the real culprits off big time.
Prague,
A lot of what happens in this Country is generated by the EU effect. There is evidence to back up of what the EuroProbe are suggesting so I really can't understand why you would think this is being fanatic. As for Nigel Farage, if you really think he is being fanatic why does the politicans not argue or some of the baised media argue against his claim? Because they clearly have not got a leg to stand on because they know he is spot on, so they will keep quiet.
To mention the EU was created to avoid fanaticism that took control of Europe, you need to look at Yugoslavia and their political history to know that will never work. The EU will never work because different countries in Europe have different views on the way things ought to progress, thus meaning they will never be in agreement.
If the Euro was going to work, it should have stay in Countries with equal economic strength. Not countries like Greece and Portugal! The EU wants to create this superstate so Angela Merkal wants to keep the likes of Greece in the Euro for this project to succeed, no matter how shit Greece get themselves into. Leaving the EU will be a great start which means we can stop sending millions to the EU a day.
I must mention again that I love the continent of Europe, I want the UK to be good next door neighbours with Europe and negotiate a free trade deal agreement but to be runned by this political elite is not the answer.
Disco, I'm not sure if you're aware but I think that only Slovenia is part of the EU. If you're imagining the problems that country suffered are based on some kind of broad, ideological differences of opinion, well, it's a bit sad.
In response to points about the EU debate here in London I would cite Newsnight last week where the whole programme was dedicated to the UK and the EU ... Nigel Farrage opened with an assertion that the euro is on the brink of collapse... so lets run away... and no-one on the other side challenged this!!! Portugal, Ireland & Greece may have issues but represent JUST 6% of the Eurozone GDP... If there was going to be a Grexit it would have happened by now... and Italy / Spain are turning a corner... if I can see that with a couple of months research I fail to see why pro Euro politicians can't/ won't make that case.... interestingly Monsieur Farrage went on to say that to ensure survival the eurozone will move ever closer into fiscal / political union... which he maintains is another reason for leaving the EU ?! Incidentally the EU institutions are none too popular across Europe - maybe they just need to grow some, and start putting though policies that will assist the continent in a very interesting / competitive century to come? Like regulating banks or challenging tax evasion which can only really be done on a regional / global basis... as mentioned higher up in the thread, systems will crash but some decent regulation might enable most to climb out of the wreckage and get going again... and how about making it simpler for UK businesses to set up branches anywhere in the EU to create jobs & profits ???
Disco just read about the history of the United States of America.
If you want to be a little Englander, and believe that we can negotiate a favourable free trade deal with the rest of Europe, then just look at our negotiations to get into the EU. We come out of Europe and get a decent free trade agreement - hugely unlikely - do you honestly think they'd negotiate in our favour? And before you criticise them, you negotiate for the good of those you represent. In essence however fanciful your dreams are, we would be out of Europe and having to accept a vast amount of their policies without any influence. We don't have an empire to trade with, and neither do we have per-head resources like Norway or their astutely created sovereign wealth fund.
As for politicians there are a multitude of arguments why they do not enter debates on the issues of the EU. The multitude are cretinous and simplistic in their ability to absorb complex and nuanced issues, people like the singular solution to everything. If something is wrong then it's the EU's fault, and there is a whole load of truisms about the EU regularly printed in the press which are absolute lies.
Federations are infinitely complex. The history of Louisiana, the French then Spanish influence, the Secession, then the White League, and civil rights movement, has plenty of struggle and death. The dollar operated and operates, in areas that are wildly diverse and at times struggled against the federal yoke. It is false to say the Euro could never work, issues of monetary governance are nearly always re-modelled after crashes. Paper money was said to never be able to work after the Mississippi Company, maybe we'll move onto something else, but it's advent created universal wealth like never before.
Oh and finally won't a cellar and larder do? I'm a dab hand at pickling too. I think if I lived in a post apocalyptic world I wouldn't be getting baby food from old stores, I'd be getting Sarson's.
Disco just read about the history of the United States of America.
If you want to be a little Englander, and believe that we can negotiate a favourable free trade deal with the rest of Europe, then just look at our negotiations to get into the EU. We come out of Europe and get a decent free trade agreement - hugely unlikely - do you honestly think they'd negotiate in our favour? And before you criticise them, you negotiate for the good of those you represent. In essence however fanciful your dreams are, we would be out of Europe and having to accept a vast amount of their policies without any influence. We don't have an empire to trade with, and neither do we have per-head resources like Norway or their astutely created sovereign wealth fund.
As for politicians there are a multitude of arguments why they do not enter debates on the issues of the EU. The multitude are cretinous and simplistic in their ability to absorb complex and nuanced issues, people like the singular solution to everything. If something is wrong then it's the EU's fault, and there is a whole load of truisms about the EU regularly printed in the press which are absolute lies.
Federations are infinitely complex. The history of Louisiana, the French then Spanish influence, the Secession, then the White League, and civil rights movement, has plenty of struggle and death. The dollar operated and operates, in areas that are wildly diverse and at times struggled against the federal yoke. It is false to say the Euro could never work, issues of monetary governance are nearly always re-modelled after crashes. Paper money was said to never be able to work after the Mississippi Company, maybe we'll move onto something else, but it's advent created universal wealth like never before.
Oh and finally won't a cellar and larder do? I'm a dab hand at pickling too. I think if I lived in a post apocalyptic world I wouldn't be getting baby food from old stores, I'd be getting Sarson's.
Superb post, one of the best I have read anywhere.
Disco just read about the history of the United States of America.
If you want to be a little Englander, and believe that we can negotiate a favourable free trade deal with the rest of Europe, then just look at our negotiations to get into the EU. We come out of Europe and get a decent free trade agreement - hugely unlikely - do you honestly think they'd negotiate in our favour? And before you criticise them, you negotiate for the good of those you represent. In essence however fanciful your dreams are, we would be out of Europe and having to accept a vast amount of their policies without any influence. We don't have an empire to trade with, and neither do we have per-head resources like Norway or their astutely created sovereign wealth fund.
As for politicians there are a multitude of arguments why they do not enter debates on the issues of the EU. The multitude are cretinous and simplistic in their ability to absorb complex and nuanced issues, people like the singular solution to everything. If something is wrong then it's the EU's fault, and there is a whole load of truisms about the EU regularly printed in the press which are absolute lies.
Federations are infinitely complex. The history of Louisiana, the French then Spanish influence, the Secession, then the White League, and civil rights movement, has plenty of struggle and death. The dollar operated and operates, in areas that are wildly diverse and at times struggled against the federal yoke. It is false to say the Euro could never work, issues of monetary governance are nearly always re-modelled after crashes. Paper money was said to never be able to work after the Mississippi Company, maybe we'll move onto something else, but it's advent created universal wealth like never before.
Oh and finally won't a cellar and larder do? I'm a dab hand at pickling too. I think if I lived in a post apocalyptic world I wouldn't be getting baby food from old stores, I'd be getting Sarson's.
Superb post, one of the best I have read anywhere.
What, even better than any of mine? You've obviously never seen a Whose Rack, well keep your eye open, Christmas Special coming up!
Disco just read about the history of the United States of America.
If you want to be a little Englander, and believe that we can negotiate a favourable free trade deal with the rest of Europe, then just look at our negotiations to get into the EU. We come out of Europe and get a decent free trade agreement - hugely unlikely - do you honestly think they'd negotiate in our favour? And before you criticise them, you negotiate for the good of those you represent. In essence however fanciful your dreams are, we would be out of Europe and having to accept a vast amount of their policies without any influence. We don't have an empire to trade with, and neither do we have per-head resources like Norway or their astutely created sovereign wealth fund.
As for politicians there are a multitude of arguments why they do not enter debates on the issues of the EU. The multitude are cretinous and simplistic in their ability to absorb complex and nuanced issues, people like the singular solution to everything. If something is wrong then it's the EU's fault, and there is a whole load of truisms about the EU regularly printed in the press which are absolute lies.
Federations are infinitely complex. The history of Louisiana, the French then Spanish influence, the Secession, then the White League, and civil rights movement, has plenty of struggle and death. The dollar operated and operates, in areas that are wildly diverse and at times struggled against the federal yoke. It is false to say the Euro could never work, issues of monetary governance are nearly always re-modelled after crashes. Paper money was said to never be able to work after the Mississippi Company, maybe we'll move onto something else, but it's advent created universal wealth like never before.
Oh and finally won't a cellar and larder do? I'm a dab hand at pickling too. I think if I lived in a post apocalyptic world I wouldn't be getting baby food from old stores, I'd be getting Sarson's.
Colin, leaving a politial union does not mean we are a bunch of little Englanders, quiet frankly that is ridiculous.
So you think we would lose trading and job losses if we left the EU? Well your wrong. We run a fairly permanent Trade Deficit with the EU of around £7 Billion for Goods, so we buy more from the EU than they buy from us. If (and when) we leave the EU, the EU will still want to sell us their goods. Can you seriously imagine the Mercedes, EDF Energy etc etc will want to leave the UK all because we will no longer be part of this political union when they make loads of money from us?
As for America, they only created the doller after there had been America for about 100 years. Europe has been going on for ages and the simple fact is the World has moved on. You had the 50's and 60's where the excitement of the United States of Europe, it is not possible to achieve it and Countries will not want to give up their identities.
Disco, I'm not sure if you're aware but I think that only Slovenia is part of the EU.
Your totally wrong.
You're
Instead of being an English teacher and correcting my grammer/spelling. Perhaps you should explain why Slovenia is only part of the EU?
Apologies for entering what appears to be a private argument but I think the point being made was that of the constituent parts of the former Yugoslavia, which you referred to earlier, only Slovenia is currently part of the EU
Disco, I'm not sure if you're aware but I think that only Slovenia is part of the EU.
Your totally wrong.
You're
Instead of being an English teacher and correcting my grammer/spelling. Perhaps you should explain why Slovenia is only part of the EU?
Grammar. I'm not being an English teacher, but I do think that if you're making an argument about preserving regional culture and values the least you could do is learn the lingo.
As Noss said my point was just that. I'll try and make it even more simple going forward.
eaststandpeter said: Sorry to be the bringer of bad news but here goes..........Buy farmland or a smallholding,self sufficiency in food,solar panels with battery backup , water borehole, poly tunnels, four large chest freezers for storing last years crop,back up generator,wood burning stove,become part of a local network of like minded people,and invest in hard money.I saw this 15 years ago coming and I've been able to help others who listened. The whole system is going down and they are not telling you the truth.The cities will be war zones with little or no police protection.So if you can relocate now to as remote a place you can and prepare do so .Also this is a wide world collapse so where ever you go it will be bad. Im not a doomsday nutter Im a level headed guy who thinks ahead.
Disco, I'm not sure if you're aware but I think that only Slovenia is part of the EU.
Your totally wrong.
You're
Instead of being an English teacher and correcting my grammer/spelling. Perhaps you should explain why Slovenia is only part of the EU?
Apologies for entering what appears to be a private argument but I think the point being made was that of the constituent parts of the former Yugoslavia, which you referred to earlier, only Slovenia is currently part of the EU
Your missing my point though Morts. Yugoslavia created this state back in the early nineties and that proved it never worked. The EU is repeating history what Yugoslavia made the mistake on. It does not matter if Solvenia is part of the EU.
Disco, that is a very isolated example of the viability of smaller states combining to form a larger Country. Putting aside the over simplification of Yugoslavia's problems, the UK is a long standing example of how smaller states can live in relative harmony under one flag, Spain and Italy are two other notable examples - it can work and in fact many of the countries we know today were once individual smaller states.
As someone who has been reading your posts on various mesage boards for several years, you seem to be becoming increasingly obsessed with the UKIP view of the European Union. You rarely post about much else these days. Please go and read some pro european blogs/articles or even better read some stuff that isn't so clearly rooted in one camp or the other - you're getting an icreasingly skewed and warped view of the issue.
Comments
Ps suppose you're hoping the end of civilization happens when you're not at a game at the Valley....that would be a bugger.
Did you spend it on a 'mushroom' farm?
As for risk management, none of the UK banks come out of the crash well. Whilst there is clear evidence that Goldman Sach's played the market with CDO's and CDS's, and covered their dealings with AIG with other organisations, that's hardly the case with Barclay's: who had one of the biggest payouts from the US government who fulfilled AIG's obligations. LTCM, NatWest Markets, Drexel Burnham Lambert, HBoS, RBS and ABN Amro, and Lehman Brothers are pretty clear examples against your belief of good risk management. LTCM is a classic example of where the statistical model did not account for pre-war volatility in markets. People and organisations time and time again do not account for catastrophic volatility. Banks are great at papering over risk assessments when the market is growing. Not so great when there's a crash. Government intervention prevented large scale foreclosures in the UK, but really US QE prevented it. Without that your shit-whistle risk assessments, would have meant countless bankruptcies and repossessions.
It's quite laughable to say that the UK government intervention had any long term effect on markets with regards to Northern Rock. They couldn't meet their borrowing needs, due to the freeze in international money markets. Their business model was dead, because of the market, and would have been dead at any point the boom was over in property regardless of government: as would have been Halifax's. The shock waves were in the system. The issue here as seriously red touches upon is that when you steroid up an economy, to avoid or blast out of crashes, many companies are not held to account for their poor performance. Bad practices are uncovered in recessions, if you save LTCM and rape emerging Asian market economies with fire-sale privatizations, who pays the price? If you don't accept the idiotic investments made under the dot-com era boom, and en-rich the rich with huge tax gimmes, who suffers for bad investments? The monetarist zealots need constant bailouts. The market's perfect pricing system, left to it's own, creates huge crashes. Some people remember the lessons, or some people suffer the repercussions. Clearly few big financial companies suffered the consequences of Drexel, Salomon and Merril from the 80's and early 90's market problems, during the second Clinton admin to Bush jnr's last few years.
If you don't allow the consequences of crashes to unfold, and implement regulation to prevent fraud and control fraud then a bounce will follow with a bigger crash. Spending more than you earn for twelve odd years, without successful raping and pillaging or productivity increases, leads to huge market problems. It's laughable to think government intervention of Northern Rock or any other institution is going to turn the tide of market forces, until government backs the whole financial system. As if any major player would have accepted that in 2007, and if they did four-seven years later a bigger crash would happen.
A lot of what happens in this Country is generated by the EU effect. There is evidence to back up of what the EuroProbe are suggesting so I really can't understand why you would think this is being fanatic. As for Nigel Farage, if you really think he is being fanatic why does the politicans not argue or some of the baised media argue against his claim? Because they clearly have not got a leg to stand on because they know he is spot on, so they will keep quiet.
To mention the EU was created to avoid fanaticism that took control of Europe, you need to look at Yugoslavia and their political history to know that will never work. The EU will never work because different countries in Europe have different views on the way things ought to progress, thus meaning they will never be in agreement.
If the Euro was going to work, it should have stay in Countries with equal economic strength. Not countries like Greece and Portugal! The EU wants to create this superstate so Angela Merkal wants to keep the likes of Greece in the Euro for this project to succeed, no matter how shit Greece get themselves into. Leaving the EU will be a great start which means we can stop sending millions to the EU a day.
I must mention again that I love the continent of Europe, I want the UK to be good next door neighbours with Europe and negotiate a free trade deal agreement but to be runned by this political elite is not the answer.
France.
Nigel Farrage opened with an assertion that the euro is on the brink of collapse... so lets run away... and no-one on the other side challenged this!!! Portugal, Ireland & Greece may have issues but represent JUST 6% of the Eurozone GDP... If there was going to be a Grexit it would have happened by now... and Italy / Spain are turning a corner... if I can see that with a couple of months research I fail to see why pro Euro politicians can't/ won't make that case.... interestingly Monsieur Farrage went on to say that to ensure survival the eurozone will move ever closer into fiscal / political union... which he maintains is another reason for leaving the EU ?!
Incidentally the EU institutions are none too popular across Europe - maybe they just need to grow some, and start putting though policies that will assist the continent in a very interesting / competitive century to come? Like regulating banks or challenging tax evasion which can only really be done on a regional / global basis... as mentioned higher up in the thread, systems will crash but some decent regulation might enable most to climb out of the wreckage and get going again... and how about making it simpler for UK businesses to set up branches anywhere in the EU to create jobs & profits ???
If you want to be a little Englander, and believe that we can negotiate a favourable free trade deal with the rest of Europe, then just look at our negotiations to get into the EU. We come out of Europe and get a decent free trade agreement - hugely unlikely - do you honestly think they'd negotiate in our favour? And before you criticise them, you negotiate for the good of those you represent. In essence however fanciful your dreams are, we would be out of Europe and having to accept a vast amount of their policies without any influence. We don't have an empire to trade with, and neither do we have per-head resources like Norway or their astutely created sovereign wealth fund.
As for politicians there are a multitude of arguments why they do not enter debates on the issues of the EU. The multitude are cretinous and simplistic in their ability to absorb complex and nuanced issues, people like the singular solution to everything. If something is wrong then it's the EU's fault, and there is a whole load of truisms about the EU regularly printed in the press which are absolute lies.
Federations are infinitely complex. The history of Louisiana, the French then Spanish influence, the Secession, then the White League, and civil rights movement, has plenty of struggle and death. The dollar operated and operates, in areas that are wildly diverse and at times struggled against the federal yoke. It is false to say the Euro could never work, issues of monetary governance are nearly always re-modelled after crashes. Paper money was said to never be able to work after the Mississippi Company, maybe we'll move onto something else, but it's advent created universal wealth like never before.
Oh and finally won't a cellar and larder do? I'm a dab hand at pickling too. I think if I lived in a post apocalyptic world I wouldn't be getting baby food from old stores, I'd be getting Sarson's.
So you think we would lose trading and job losses if we left the EU? Well your wrong. We run a fairly permanent Trade Deficit with the EU of around £7 Billion for Goods, so we buy more from the EU than they buy from us. If (and when) we leave the EU, the EU will still want to sell us their goods. Can you seriously imagine the Mercedes, EDF Energy etc etc will want to leave the UK all because we will no longer be part of this political union when they make loads of money from us?
As for America, they only created the doller after there had been America for about 100 years. Europe has been going on for ages and the simple fact is the World has moved on. You had the 50's and 60's where the excitement of the United States of Europe, it is not possible to achieve it and Countries will not want to give up their identities.
As Noss said my point was just that. I'll try and make it even more simple going forward.
Sorry to be the bringer of bad news but here goes..........Buy farmland or a smallholding,self sufficiency in food,solar panels with battery backup , water borehole, poly tunnels, four large chest freezers for storing last years crop,back up generator,wood burning stove,become part of a local network of like minded people,and invest in hard money.I saw this 15 years ago coming and I've been able to help others who listened. The whole system is going down and they are not telling you the truth.The cities will be war zones with little or no police protection.So if you can relocate now to as remote a place you can and prepare do so .Also this is a wide world collapse so where ever you go it will be bad. Im not a doomsday nutter Im a level headed guy who thinks ahead.
Anyone else find this a bit worrying?
As someone who has been reading your posts on various mesage boards for several years, you seem to be becoming increasingly obsessed with the UKIP view of the European Union. You rarely post about much else these days. Please go and read some pro european blogs/articles or even better read some stuff that isn't so clearly rooted in one camp or the other - you're getting an icreasingly skewed and warped view of the issue.