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At least Berlusconi's political career finally seems to be over. Took long enough, Jesus Christ.
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May 8, 2014 19:23
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Phlegmish posted:At least Berlusconi's political career finally seems to be over. Took long enough, Jesus Christ. Ha. Ha ha ha ha ha. HA HA HA HA  You're either an optimist or a comedian, and that was a really good joke. I'll believe it only if and when he tanks two elections in a row.
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May 8, 2014 21:18
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Phlegmish posted:At least Berlusconi's political career finally seems to be over. Took long enough, Jesus Christ. If anything, at least the Italians can rest easy, knowing that one day, time itself will finally rid them of Berlusconi. And it still won't be soon enough.
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May 8, 2014 21:34
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Deltasquid posted:If anything, at least the Italians can rest easy, knowing that one day, time itself will finally rid them of Berlusconi. I bet he dies during one of his bunga-bunga parties.
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May 8, 2014 21:36
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Deltasquid posted:If anything, at least the Italians can rest easy, knowing that one day, time itself will finally rid them of Berlusconi. No worries, we'll have a new national hero by then.
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May 9, 2014 09:29
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So, how crazy are your eurosceptics? I feel that ours have struck a fairly crushing first blow that other countries with inferior frothing eurosceptics will struggle to match, but maybe yours can do better! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JO2ij6EorAc
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May 9, 2014 13:26
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LemonDrizzle posted:So, how crazy are your eurosceptics? I feel that ours have struck a fairly crushing first blow that other countries with inferior frothing eurosceptics will struggle to match, but maybe yours can do better! No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. And early in the twentieth century came the great disillusionment.
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May 9, 2014 14:14
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTJstMiRTEc Streaming from Florence, State of the European Union. The 4 main groups' leaders are speaking. Again, Tsipras isn't there. Dunno why.
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May 9, 2014 18:02
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Jose's real mad about the UK. Makes me feel all unloved.
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May 9, 2014 18:14
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Char posted:
He is busy doing very important "business". Might appear on the last debate, who knowns.
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May 9, 2014 18:14
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Is Tsipras' spoken English good enough to participate in a televised debate like this without being at a gross disadvantage? edit: when they were talking about the financial crisis, Verhofstadt and Schultz clashed over France's deficit - apparently a few months ago, Schultz was arguing that France should be given more time to bring its deficit back within the limits required by the stability & growth pact whereas Verhofstadt was saying that the Commission should not countenance any such thing. What punitive measures can the EU take against eurozone states that are in violation of the pact's terms? Looking at wikipedia, it basically seems limited to telling the offending state off and asking them to behave themselves. LemonDrizzle fucked around with this message at 18:33 on May 9, 2014 |
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May 9, 2014 18:20
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LemonDrizzle posted:Is Tsipras' spoken English good enough to participate in a televised debate like this without being at a gross disadvantage? Bad English didn't stop former Portuguese PM José Socrates of doing lectures in the USA. But yes, apparently he has trouble without a prepared speech, but that isn't stopping José Bové.  Edit: I don't think the EU can really do much, other than angry letters. Doing actually something, especially at this point would only make more euro sceptics come out of the woodwork. Personally, I think the EU should care less about deficits, and care more about where those European funds it gives out to member states end up. Electronico6 fucked around with this message at 18:38 on May 9, 2014 |
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May 9, 2014 18:33
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I was actually quite impressed with the quality of Bove's English - a few oddities aside, he's been very good. From a British perspective, it's astonishing how strongly all of the candidates are in favour of an integrated EU military. Interesting to see Schultz gushing over Ashton too. e: 500 million citizens, 375 million voters, ~600 people watching the presidential candidates debating.  e2: everyone's in favour of a unified european immigration policy for non-eu citizens. eurosceptic/nativist parties could make a lot of hay out of that, surely? ahahahaaa verhofstadt arguing for giving the unemployed of eu countries with few employment opportunities assistance in migrating to those with jobs. UKIP heads will explode. LemonDrizzle fucked around with this message at 19:25 on May 9, 2014 |
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May 9, 2014 18:42
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At the end we are reminded of the great democratic process of the Europe Union, by applauding that for the first time the Commission is going to be elected. Though as a Portuguese I can only vote for two, of the four candidates in the debate, as Verhofstadt has no party representing him, and Keller/Bové only have a party that has been around for 5 months. I highly doubt it, but I hope this democratic deficit in many of the members states comes up eventually in these debates. Also I'm not sure if Schultz is for real. In the closing statements he talks about how people(euro-citizens) are "struggling with 1000 euros(every day????)". I imagine he is talking about wages. Maybe in Germany 1000 euros is what you give as tip for cab drivers, but there's a lot of people out there in Europe who would consider a 1000 euros a month enough to feel like winning the lottery.
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May 9, 2014 19:48
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LemonDrizzle posted:e: 500 million citizens, 375 million voters, ~600 people watching the presidential candidates debating.
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May 9, 2014 22:46
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Electronico6 posted:Also I'm not sure if Schultz is for real. In the closing statements he talks about how people(euro-citizens) are "struggling with 1000 euros(every day????)". I imagine he is talking about wages. Maybe in Germany 1000 euros is what you give as tip for cab drivers, but there's a lot of people out there in Europe who would consider a 1000 euros a month enough to feel like winning the lottery. € 1,000 a month is not a lot. Unless the cost of living is very low where they live, I can imagine people struggling to get by on that.
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May 9, 2014 23:12
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Apparently they lumped the French living abroad with the Ile de France constituency for the European elections, Here are the names of the lists for the IDF/French people abroad: 1. Regions and Solidarity: autonomist parties (Brittany, Corsica, etc repping the land of my forefathers  they're allied with the Greens on the European level).2. Us Citizens: some dude talking about job creators (right wing) 3. Solidarity Europe (I'm not sure what's their deal  )4. Europe Ecology (Greens) 5. Cannabis Without Borders, Stop Prohibition (  smoke weed everyday)6. Europe Degrowth (degrowth movement) 7. UMP (right wing fuckers) 8.Federalist European Party (federalist party duh) 9. Royalist France in Europe (Monarchist party  )10. Together for a Fair Europe (don't know) 11. UDM supported by Bayrou and Borloo (centre right) 12. Esperanto Common Language (esperanto party )13. Communists (some far left party, not the actual Communist Party) 14. Rise Up France! Against the System and Against Extremism! (eurosceptic party, gaullist, I think buddying up with Farage's less fascist group) 15. Blank Vote Citizens ( party that wants blank votes to be counted alongside the non-blank ones) 16. Feminists for Solidarity in Europe. 17. Independent Ecologist Alliance. 18. Choosing Our Europe (Socialist Party) 19. Left Front-Stop the Europe of Finance-People First! (Left Front: Mélenchon and Communist Party) 20. True Democracy (Direct democracy party) 21. For a Free Europe (I have no idea) 22. UPR-IDF 23. Europe From Marrakech to Istanbul (wants to include Mediterranean countries in Europe, but not Switzerland because of their xenophobia, good luck you crazy bastards  )24. Worker's Struggle (Trotskyist) 25. Europirates (ugh) 26. New Deal (splinter from Socialist Party) 27. Europe of Citizens (right wing green party) 28.European Party. 29. Life Force (Christian fundie party) 30. Fuckers National (Fascists) Fun fact: the head of list went in Crimea to assess the validity of Putin's referendum 31. New Anticapitalist Party (trotskyist, Besancenot the mailman is head of list) Kurtofan fucked around with this message at 00:39 on May 11, 2014 |
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May 11, 2014 00:34
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Conchita Wurst won 
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May 11, 2014 01:00
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Electronico6 posted:
Schultz is the dear leader of the socialist party. It's obvious he doesn't have a clue about how an actual common citizen lives his life.  What's the collective noun for a group of muppets?
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May 11, 2014 02:24
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Mans posted:What's the collective noun for a group of muppets? A show, I believe. This was actually stated on one of their late night TV outings.
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May 11, 2014 03:06
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Electronico6 posted:Also I'm not sure if Schultz is for real. In the closing statements he talks about how people(euro-citizens) are "struggling with 1000 euros(every day????)". I imagine he is talking about wages. Maybe in Germany 1000 euros is what you give as tip for cab drivers, but there's a lot of people out there in Europe who would consider a 1000 euros a month enough to feel like winning the lottery. Let's be fair, here, 12000 E/year is still not a lot. That's... roughly 16k dollars a year. That's above the poverty line according to the US Metric, but according to the British metric (near as I can tell) that's scraping the line, at best. Just another reminder of how bad things have gotten over here, I suppose. Anyway, it's certainly out of touch but not wildly so, and he's not saying horrendous poo poo like some of our pols do. I haven't forgotten Ann Romney talking about how at one point she and Mitt were so hard up, they had to sell some of his stock! Edit: Yeah, according to some quick Googling Germany's poverty line sits at 6.61 a day, a whole loving dollar and a half more than here. So 1000 euros a month would just about place you at the poverty line there. Redeye Flight fucked around with this message at 03:51 on May 11, 2014 |
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May 11, 2014 03:49
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Outside of Germany and France a thousand euros is a massive amount of Euros for the common worker. Schultz only knows the reality of Germans and the interest of Germans, but anyone who believes otherwise is voting out of self-illusion. I'm part of the "living with 500 euros a month" crew. We are a p. big crew outside of Merkelandia.
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May 11, 2014 04:06
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€ 500 a month might be normal if you're young, on unemployment benefits and living with your parents. I've been on benefits for a few months now (thankfully starting a new job in June) and I get even less than that. But if you have a full-time job, € 1000 a month is close to minimum wage in most of Western Europe - not just Germany. It's not a lot, and that wasn't such a crazy thing to say for Schultz.
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May 11, 2014 04:24
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Mans posted:Outside of Germany and France a thousand euros is a massive amount of Euros for the common worker. Schultz only knows the reality of Germans and the interest of Germans, but anyone who believes otherwise is voting out of self-illusion. An income below 1k euros/month (or the equivalent in GBP/SEK/DKK) would be low enough to put you into economic hardship almost anywhere in northern/western Europe, and well below the minimum wage for a full time employee in those NW european countries that have one. It's a perfectly reasonable value to use as a hardship threshold.
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May 11, 2014 06:47
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Kurtofan posted:15. Blank Vote Citizens ( party that wants blank votes to be counted alongside the non-blank ones) vvv: Ah. So that blank ballots are not counted as Nektu fucked around with this message at 10:36 on May 11, 2014 |
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May 11, 2014 08:25
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It means they want blank ballots to be counted in the election.
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May 11, 2014 09:15
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Phlegmish posted:€ 500 a month might be normal if you're young, on unemployment benefits and living with your parents. I've been on benefits for a few months now (thankfully starting a new job in June) and I get even less than that. But if you have a full-time job, € 1000 a month is close to minimum wage in most of Western Europe - not just Germany. It's not a lot, and that wasn't such a crazy thing to say for Schultz. The minimum wage in Portugal is 485 euro(after taxes), the average wage was falling well below 800 in 2012. There's 10 countries in the EU which have minimum wages below the 400 euro mark, and out of the countries that have minimum wage set only 6 have over 1000.(7 now with Germany I guess) * Despite my sarcasm, I entirely believe that out there 1000 euro is not that great, but a good chunk of Europe is struggling with far less, and the value Schultz throws in the air, in the middle of his "We have to regain the trust of the average euro-citizen" routine does not portray the reality of the euro-crisis and the massive inequality in Europe. *http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/tgm/table.do?tab=table&plugin=1&language=en&pcode=tps00155
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May 11, 2014 10:25
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Electronico6 posted:Despite my sarcasm, I entirely believe that out there 1000 euro is not that great, but a good chunk of Europe is struggling with far less, and the value Schultz throws in the air, in the middle of his "We have to regain the trust of the average euro-citizen" routine does not portray the reality of the euro-crisis and the massive inequality in Europe. Is the cost of living a more general level across the EU because of the open trade, or could places like those where it's under €400 have a lower CoL to offset the low income?
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May 11, 2014 10:34
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Nektu posted:Maybe its lost in translation, but what does that even mean? Exactly.
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May 11, 2014 11:00
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QuantumCrayons posted:Is the cost of living a more general level across the EU because of the open trade, or could places like those where it's under €400 have a lower CoL to offset the low income? Can only speak for Portugal here, but no. Costs of living have never stopped increasing since Portugal joined the euro(gotta catch up with the EU average) and for a time so were wages, but they hit a wall around '06, and have been cut twice since '11 and taxes have been massively increased.(VAT is 23,25% here) Our minimum wage is worth less today than it was 40 years ago. Quality of life has also decreased. Lisbon and the coastline of the Algarve can get crazy expensive, with the rest of the country not far behind. However living in Lisbon you can probably find some kind job and have access to various quality services(hospitals, schools, etc). The rest of the country, including the Algarve, is not so lucky. Living in a city in the interior you won't find a job, there's a good chance that the nearest hospital doesn't have ambulances and only minimum staff(and that is if you have a nearer hospital/health centre), your schools are understaffed and can't offer the full curriculum, worse, their walls and roofs are filled with poison, also the local court has closed down, so has the local tax department, and the post office will follow suit. I'm going to hazard a guess that the situation is similar in Eastern Europe countries that are in the Euro, or have their currency pegged to the Euro. CoL going up, with stagnant wages.
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May 11, 2014 11:48
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Electronico6 posted:The minimum wage in Portugal is 485 euro(after taxes), the average wage was falling well below 800 in 2012. There's 10 countries in the EU which have minimum wages below the 400 euro mark, and out of the countries that have minimum wage set only 6 have over 1000.(7 now with Germany I guess) * Luxembourg, France, Belgium, Ireland, Netherlands, UK, and Germany account for nearly half the population of the EU (~235 million out of 500 million) and you get well over that threshold if you include countries with a high cost of living (and no minimum wage listed according to the wikipedia page) such as Denmark, Finland, Sweden, and Austria (another 28 million or so). So I think it's hardly controversial to say that an average EU citizen would be struggling on 1000 Euros a month since more than half of EU citizens live in countries where this would be a below minimum wage income for a full time job. This doesn't even include Italy where presumably 1000 Euros a month won't go that far either.
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May 11, 2014 15:44
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Lord of the Llamas posted:Luxembourg, France, Belgium, Ireland, Netherlands, UK, and Germany account for nearly half the population of the EU (~235 million out of 500 million) and you get well over that threshold if you include countries with a high cost of living (and no minimum wage listed according to the wikipedia page) such as Denmark, Finland, Sweden, and Austria (another 28 million or so). So I think it's hardly controversial to say that an average EU citizen would be struggling on 1000 Euros a month since more than half of EU citizens live in countries where this would be a below minimum wage income for a full time job. This doesn't even include Italy where presumably 1000 Euros a month won't go that far either. Yes, Schultz is talking from the mind-set of NW Europeans. You can't see why this is problematic to someone that isn't in NW Europe? When you live in South or Eastern Europe where a thousand euros puts you well above the average wage trying to appeal to the struggle of living "with just a thousand euros a month" is either insulting or confusing as hell.
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May 11, 2014 17:05
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Mans posted:Yes, Schultz is talking from the mind-set of NW Europeans. You can't see why this is problematic to someone that isn't in NW Europe? When you live in South or Eastern Europe where a thousand euros puts you well above the average wage trying to appeal to the struggle of living "with just a thousand euros a month" is either insulting or confusing as hell. I think it's reading his statement way too literally, of course we are all aware there are earnings/cost of living differences across Europe. It's also wrong to claim that somehow the didn't apply (literally) to the countries where the majority of EU citizens live. The fact is that he was trying to highlight that there are many people in the EU who are struggling on low incomes. Nitpicking over the exact figures he used in his example is completely pointless.
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May 11, 2014 18:03
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Redeye Flight posted:Let's be fair, here, 12000 E/year is still not a lot. That's... roughly 16k dollars a year. That's above the poverty line according to the US Metric, but according to the British metric (near as I can tell) that's scraping the line, at best. You need to remember that the €1000 a month figure is after taxes whereas most listed US wages are pre-tax so taxes and Social Security will still be taken out of that sum. Any job with a $16k USD salary is also part-time and will require you to pay for things like health insurance yourself while the taxes taken out of the euro salary already include health care costs. €1000 a month is roughly both the mean and median income in Slovenia and, while it's generally not a whole lot, the people there aren't living like complete paupers either. Of course, the economy isn't helped by the fact that creating a functional, non-corrupt government there seems to be a bit of a challenge.
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May 11, 2014 18:10
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Lord of the Llamas posted:I think it's reading his statement way too literally, of course we are all aware there are earnings/cost of living differences across Europe. It's also wrong to claim that somehow the didn't apply (literally) to the countries where the majority of EU citizens live. The fact is that he was trying to highlight that there are many people in the EU who are struggling on low incomes. Nitpicking over the exact figures he used in his example is completely pointless.
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May 11, 2014 18:11
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Nektu posted:I dont think that you get what he is saying... Why don't you enlighten me.
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May 11, 2014 18:28
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Lord of the Llamas posted:Why don't you enlighten me. He sounds desparate and angry (with good reason), and does not seem to think that bruessels takes his situation seriously (they may take it seriously, but they cannot change it because austerity is literally the only solution anybody came up with to keep the euro alive at this point, so eh). I also doubt that your arguing of technicalities is helping... Nektu fucked around with this message at 18:56 on May 11, 2014 |
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May 11, 2014 18:54
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http://www.ilga-europe.org/home/how_we_work/european_institutions/ep2014/candidate/signed/map An interesting map.
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May 11, 2014 20:20
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Is there any chance at all than an anti-austerity party might get a plurality of seats in the EP?
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May 11, 2014 21:55
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KoldPT posted:http://www.ilga-europe.org/home/how_we_work/european_institutions/ep2014/candidate/signed/map Is that loving map for real? How can so many countries have less signes then they have seats? 
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