Euro Phobes?

[oldgit]

Re: Francophile writes

My observation would be that we have had a respite from the long term decline in our standard of living compared to our near neighbours.
Who have always been prepared to invest for the long term.Ie several new rail links to the south and investment in Airports etc.

Q.Train full of people.How do you tell which one is the Englishman.
A.All the passengers except the englishman will be facing forward to see where they want to go.He will be looking back regretting he ever left in the first place,

Just hold tight dear it will not be so rough when we get round the corner,trust me.

 

[cdman]

I think that you can buy for a good price in the Euro-country's. Holland is the most chape country of al I read.
WWW.CARTERDRENT.NL

 

[jimi]

I travel a lot to the Netherlands & prior to the Euro they were ardently pro, however since the intro most of the people I know are really peed of with the higher prices etc & yearn for the return of the guilder.

However the genie is out the bottle now & I do'nt really think it can be stuffed back in.



Jim

 

[tcm]

Re: I blame the govt

Agreed.

Of course, the govt not really been tested with fair economy since 97, despite a brief kicking in 2000 for petrol prices. Interest rates gong down an all.

But note how rover sale = govt cockup, train crash = govt cockup and now power generator going pop = govt cockup. None of these owned nor run by hmg. So decentralised intrets rates set by MPC will still be seen as "the government".

Of course the real answer is [puts on mad right wing head] to fling all the poor and stupid people into the sea to build some nice new harbours along the south coast like they did in Monaco to build a heliport and a marina with swanky flats.

My other concern is that public transport is being designed to get faster and faster with tilting trains and bus lanes and new airports for cheap flights. In fact, this is quite wrong: we all hate it when there are train or bus or airport disasters so the planes and buses and train should be made to go nice and slow on purpose and stop pretending to be fast. Meanwhile, all the motorways should remade with proper rc substructure, fully banked corners and experimental one way north on m6, east on m62, s on M1, clockwise on m25, and no lorries cept between 9 am and 4pm and speed limit to take full accont of road car speed inflation index since mid sixties when it was relatively about as fast as an ordinary car would go, bit faster than a Mini, so now 130mph seems (relatively) as sensible as 70 mph was then.

 

[pkb]

I realised that the pro-Euro lobby was becoming desperate when the argument was put about that handling Euro notes and coins while we were all holidaying in Europe would somehow de-demonise - if you know what I mean - the beastly Euro and then we would all happily rush off and vote away the pound whenever we have our referendum.

What a load of old codswallop! Francs, Lira, Deutchmarks, Euros. There all just another currency that we swap for our pounds.

Peter

 

[Guest]

I read recently in The Daily Torygraph that even when people used Euros on holiday it did not make them pro Euro when they returned home. But then again thet would say that. I have used them and I am still anti.

 

[tcm]

I visted italy, france and spain so very nice and easy with just one kind of foriegn money. So I am very very pro the euro - for them. But not for us.

 

[oldgit]

Re: I blame the everyone else. Guv

Lets face it the eurozone has got all the best wine,food,sunshine,beaches,skiing,cars and wimmin and your all just jealous so there.
And don,t waste your time telling me about Aston martin.Its tractor unit and should have hitch for towing 40ft trailors.

Just hold tight dear it will not be so rough when we get round the corner,trust me.

 

[Footpad]

Re: Sabbath

As he did it all in the Old Testament written by pre Christian Jews the seventh day would have been Saturday which is why Sunday is the first day of the week.

 

[poter]

Re: Sabbath

Yeh Yeh ok...........
But why did he make the earth flat?


poter

 

[MapisM]

Back to the original question...

...which was: "Are we (UK people, I assume) ready?".
Judging from the feedbacks, the answer is clearly "No, we aren't" - plain and simple.
Fair enough.
But then, it seems that most of you are trying to convince themselves (and anyone else) that the Euro will kill us all.
Now, I'm not an Euro fan, but I do think that the sun will continue to rise East regardless of whether the Euro will be a flop or a success.
And generally speaking, I'm somewhat surprised by such fear of changes from a boating community.
The sea is at least as unpredictable as the Euro effects on our economies, but we still love it.
Don't we?

<A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.arweb.co.uk/argallery/boaters/sausalito>Looking for leaveaboard…?</A> /forums/images/icons/cool.gif

 

[bob_tyler]

Re: Back to the original question...

A South African Boer farmer expounding on his troubles:
"It all started back in the sixties when they changed from pounds to rands and suddenly my overdraft doubled. I was just getting used to this when they brought in kilograms instead of pounds, and my wool clip dropped by half. They then changed rainfall to millimetres and we haven't had an inch of rain since. So what do they do? They bring in a thing called celsius and it never gets hotter than 40 degrees in mid summer. No wonder my wheat won't grow. This wasn't enough they had to change us over from acres to hectares and I end with half the land I had. So, one day, I sat down and had a think, and I decided to sell out. But, to cap it all off, I just got the place in the agent's hands when they changed from miles to kilometres and now I find I am too far out of town for anyone to buy my farm'

No Euros. Keep miles, lbs & ozs, gallons, acres, farenheit, feet and inches and the £.

 

[Guest]

Re: Back to the original question...

"The sea is at least as unpredictable as the Euro effects on our economies, but we still love it." Well that is one way of looking at it. Anyway it sounds as if you have been corrupted by not being in the UK enough.

 

[ccscott49]

Re: I blame the everyone else. Guv

Now, now our wimmin are just as good, I bet you didn't let your missus read this one!

 

[tcm]

Re: Blairist argument!

I mean gosh, everyone thought that things wd be dreadful with a labour government , and they simply aren't, are they? Likewise, I might be going on about Iraq, but supposing I'd have warned about these threats exactly a year ago, or um at some other time in different circumstances? Then what? Likewise with the Euro, the doomsayers have been proved wrong and it isn't a failure, as shown by the fact that germany and france and all the other countries are still there and haven't crumbled into the sea....

These aren't good enough arguments.

Good ideas are always, obviously, good ideas. They have a purpose, a cost, a realisable goal, an obviously positive tangible result. The Euro doesn't have any of these.

Put it another way ...suppose that we were in the Euro already. How about...leaving the Euro? Hmm? And having "Pounds Sterling". We could directly elect those responsible for setting interest rates, and chuckem out if we don't like them! Then , all of us in the same country, who speak the same language and have the same television and radio stations to hear the politicians (which isn't the case with the eurozone) would be able to see and hear those whom they had elected. Much better. At the moment this rather good idea with a very positive end result costs... nothing at all.

 

[ccscott49]

Re: Blairist argument!

Fancy bringing sense, inteligence and reason into this discussion, just not good enough! Go and hang your head in shame! /forums/images/icons/wink.gif

 

[zefender]

Re: Interest rate set by elected reps?

One of the first things Gordon Brown did on election was to create the monetary committee (made up of unelected economists and bankers), to set the interest rate, independent(ish) of government. Eurodosh is much the same.

 

[poter]

Britain Rules Ok.

Right, after all the arguments surely the answer is for all those that like the Euro, go and live in euroland. and all those that want to keep Britain as Britain, stay here and defend it against all those Johnny foreigners.


Poter

 

[vyv_cox]

Re: Blairist argument!

"They have a purpose, a cost, a realisable goal, an obviously positive tangible result. The Euro doesn't have any of these. "

Purpose - to make trade between member countries simpler and cheaper. This has undoubtedly been achieved. At the personal level, I used to keep little bags of currency for all the countries I visited. Now none of these is necessary, except the odd cases, like Denmark. At the corporate level, transactions are now incredibly simple, as opposed to the way we worked previously.

Cost - there was a considerable cost associated with the change-over, from vending machines to currency. Some profiteering has been inevitable, but no more than when UK changed from LSD to decimal currency. Market forces will bring it all back into line.

Goal - see purpose

Tangible result - also see purpose, but it goes further. The Euro has had a poor start due to a variety of reasons, some real, some perceived. These are gradually being resolved with the result that the Euro is gaining in world monetary markets. Ultimately it will overtake the pound as a high-confidence currency. Member states will benefit from cheaper imports and higher leverage on exports. Less well-off member states will benefit by attracting manufacturing without the penalties of import/export duties. The better-off states will do less and less manufacturing but benefit from services and financial dealing. It's already happening. We buy all sorts of commodities that are made in Eastern Europe, labelled in four languages (not including English). Cost is kept down by these measures. Rip-off Britain? Join the Euro to stop it.

 

[ccscott49]

Re: Blairist argument!

I was going to, but no, you're obviously a lost cause. /forums/images/icons/smile.gif