Ongoing European Debt Crisis

Well on the one hand, the US's unemployment is 6.3% on total viable/active labor, but remember that the Government doesn't count people they assume won't ever get back in. So it could potentially be something like 15% total viable working age populace or something.

edited 11th May '14 11:36:38 PM by PotatoesRock

Many were increasingly of the opinion that they'd all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. - Douglas Adams

Greece's unemployment rate is 27.3%. Why don't they count everyone who's unemployed? That sounds a bit like they're cheating. Which is probably the point, in fairness.

300 million people claim Irish heritage, but only 4/5 million actually live in Ireland. I think that's absolutely mental. But then, emigration's been a part of the culture here for years, that every young Irish person knows that when times get tough, you get out. That's why we've had such a high birth rate for years, but the population doesn't usually get much bigger.

At least emigration's not as horrible now though, with easy access to phones, and social media and the ability to visit home more often. There's a good reason they used to associate death and emigration together over here.

edited 12th May '14 1:55:52 AM by QueenPanic

36 million people claim it in the US alone. That's about 11% of their population. Hell, I'm aiming to go into an industry that's growing rapidly, and I'll still probably have to emigrate.

They do have medals for almost, and they're called silver!

There is also the interesting phenomenon whereby English is seen as a cultural tabula rasa:

"Well, all my family apart from Great-Grandpa Patrick O'Fitzboyle were English."

"So you're English?"

"No, I'm Irish!"

Interestingly, we Scots had enough sense to go to Canada instead; and they've taken much better care of their heritage than the horribly commercialized way America treats Ireland. I might even emigrate there myself.

edited 12th May '14 2:44:39 AM by Achaemenid

Schild und Schwert der Partei

Oh, the Irish are heading Canada's way, trust me. Australia and New Zealand seem popular too.

They do have medals for almost, and they're called silver!

The United States commercializes every culture.

More on topic, emigration is a traditional response to economic privation, but the EU has significant legal and cultural barriers to labor mobility. It's not a solution on anything like the scale needed here.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Cultural barriers, yes, legal barriers not so much. Free movement of workers is one of the four fundamental freedoms of the internal market. Trouble is, the labor markets that needed immigrants already have already got them from the East; there's not so much a role for the South too.

Schild und Schwert der Partei

Another problem is that when a large chunk of your group's member nations (or states, for that matter) are in trouble, they can't all emigrate elsewhere; that's like two sinking ships picking up the refugees in each other's lifeboats.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

It's because of the way people define things like the Labor Force and such.

There is a practical element to it in that you don't want to count people like students, retirees, and the disabled as being unemployed. However it can make the Unemployment Rate look misleading when you have a large number of "discouraged workers" like we do know in the US.

There are other measures of unemployment that seek to capture the real picture — labor force participation is one of them. It's way down since the 2008 crisis. One also has to count underemployment: people working less than full time, as well as people working below their education level (Ph.D.s flipping burgers and such).

All of these speak to an ongoing demographic catastrophe.

edited 12th May '14 6:38:25 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

The Italian Disaster.

Could the guy write any more purple? Still, the corruption he details is monumental in scope.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

It's the LRB, Purple Prose is their stock-in-trade.

edited 17th May '14 6:00:31 PM by Achaemenid

Schild und Schwert der Partei

Yet, sadly familiar. It's no surprise why there's an anti-politics mood in the EU at the moment, since there's little alternative.

Bank chief Mark Carney warns over housing market

Keep Rolling On

@Achmaenid: The large number of Scots can be blamed on/credited to the American Revolution. While the Scots-Irish mostly favored the Patriot/Rebel side, Scots from Scotland mostly stuck to the King. So when the Brits lost, they hightailed it up north to avoid angry mobs.

edited 18th May '14 6:54:39 AM by tricksterson

Trump delenda est

True, although Scots emigration to Canada was an extremely common phenomenon during the Victorian era. Still is, to a degree; hence why Still Game has Jack's daughter living in Canada.

Schild und Schwert der Partei

Weren't the Scots said to have built The British Empire?

Keep Rolling On

We certainly did.

Schild und Schwert der Partei

That's not really something to be proud of.

Greek aid threatened by court rulings on pay.

The European Goldilocks Dilemma: The region needs to escape from weak growth, but too strong a growth apparently will cause the banks to start liquidating and restart the Euro Crisis. And what's damaging a lot of countries is the "Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance which forces countries to run either balanced budgets or surplus budgets, or face painful fines.

What's of real interest that I didn't realize here is that too strong of a growth will literally restart the banking crisis in Europe.

Many were increasingly of the opinion that they'd all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. - Douglas Adams

Hoo boy. So the Eurozone suicide pact is advancing apace. It's interesting to see it spelled out in writing, but it's only amusing in a Pass the Popcorn sense.

Still, they have ways out of the mess. Repeal the balls-out stupid TSCG, push for growth, and nationalize any banks that bust as a result, like Iceland did.

edited 15th Jul '14 11:37:07 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

I thought the EU needed more consolidation/control over the finances. Wasn't the treaty doing that as well?

Final Fantasy, Foreign Policy, and Bollywood. Helluva combo, that...

The treaty is a straitjacket for the various EU countries to hang themselves in; it provides nothing in the way of stability because it has no way to address asymmetric crises other than to punish nations that are already suffering.

It's like saying to a man who loses his job, "Pay your debts or we'll fine you."

edited 15th Jul '14 12:07:39 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Okay, then is there a way for the EU to move forward other than repealing the treaty? Or rather, after it does so?

edited 15th Jul '14 12:19:53 PM by FFShinra

Final Fantasy, Foreign Policy, and Bollywood. Helluva combo, that...