Sometimes very active discussions about peripheral issues overwhelm a thread, so this is a permanent home for those conversations.
This is also a continuation of previous Sandbox threads (1) and (2) that have fallen victim to the dreaded page bug.
The Skeptical Zone
"I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken."
Cool–you can keep paying but not get to vote anymore. That really *IS* a great outcome:
http://www.efta.int/eea/eu-programmes/application-finances/eea-efta-budget
At a personal level, I don’t like having to pay for other people’s stupidity. When government becomes a channel for collective stupidity of others to infect my life and freedom, I get annoyed.
Here is an example of stupidity of one segment of the population being imposed on another. If someone thinks state employees should be given such lavish pensions, let them pay for it themselves, not me. Thankfully I don’t live in Illinois:
and now California:
No disrespect intended toward civil servants, but there aren’t comparable deals in the private sector, and civil servants should be given wages and pensions in line with what their counter parts in private industry are suffering through. If people in private industry have to save up for their own pensions to retire on, I don’t think it’s absurd to ask that of civil servants. That’s paying their fair share. Given the high pay of some of these civil servants, they would be classified as rich even in the USA.
But there is really nothing much I can do. If the culture keeps buying into the idea of centralized control, this is the price to pay, and it’s a price I have to pay even though I don’t ascent to it.
I said 10% is what I’m willing to give for someone else to decide for me. If I think the poor retired police chief earning half a million a year needs more help beyond what my 10% can provide, I should be the one to decide if I have the means and desire to pay him, not someone else.
I don’t disagree, and those sorts of pensions are disappearing in the public sector as well. Keep in mind too that Reagan required that those getting state pensions would generally not be eligible for Social Security–regardless of how much money they’d otherwise be entitled to in that system. They might have worked in the private sector for 25 years and not be entitled to a penny of Social Security. So, it hasn’t been entirely rosy for state employees since the Reagan days.
Thanks for the info, I didn’t know that.
Patrick,
Yes, but it does mean that almost all the things the Leave-ers may have thought they were voting for cannot be achieved. We’ve lost influence and gained nothing but an intangible ‘sovereignty’ over certain quite limited areas.
stcordova,
You can pick all manner of stupidities from any legislature you like. It does not make them worthless, and everything they do without merit.
stcordova,
Me either. That’s why I’m so pissed at the Leave madness.
There’s an inconsistency here.
Many government employees accepted jobs that pay less than they would get in the private sector, and worked at those jobs for decades, motivated by the rather nice defined-benefit pensions that they were vesting in the process.
Many (but not all…) teachers, cops, firefighters and prison guards come to mind. And even the ones who could not have earned more in the private sector still had employment contracts that included whatever perks they are entitled too. Just like the generous flight benefits that airline employees are entitled to…
Reneging on any employer-employee contract is, err, reneging on a contract.
Now, as noted above, the cushier pension plans are disappearing, but I agree that some government employees have vested defined-benefit pensions that are, by any objective standard, overly generous, and, in certain well-publicized cases, unaffordable. What to do?
1) Stop writing unaffordable defined-benefit plans. This has pretty much happened.
2) Renegotiate the more egregious cases. This is tricky…
Here are the wikipedia articles on the two relevant provisions of the Social Security laws:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_Government_Pension_Offset
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windfall_Elimination_Provision
A slightly different angle. I don’t have a real dog in this fight except out of curiosity in the world of finance and behind-the-scenes intrigue. The following collection of articles echoes my sentiments.
The financial markets dipped a little, but when I look at the EURO chart, it looks like the Brexit is bad news, but not as bad as what ever caused it to start slipping in Fall 2014 to Spring 2015 from the chart here:
http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=EUR&to=USD&view=2Y
Now I just looked this up. The article seems correct to me. Any inaccuracies?
http://fortune.com/2014/10/22/why-germany-is-the-eurozones-biggest-free-rider/
I’ve often said political moves meant for profit of greedy parties will be falsely advertised in the name of some noble goal like “peace, prosperity, cooperation, anti-discrimination…blah blah blah”. But the bottom line is that EU members like Greece and Spain don’t look like the EU has done them much good.
From what I read in financial reports, the hedge fund managers and some not-so-savory parties were making money on Greece despite its demise! Amazing. I knew something unwholesome was in the works….
Plunder Greece and make the rest of the EU pay and the international community pay.
http://greece.greekreporter.com/2014/03/10/greeces-rich-plundered-banks/
walto,
He already has, and nowhere did he call for the dissolution of federal, state, and local governments.
Your claim is false:
keiths, to Patrick:
walto:
He isn’t, so why pretend that he is? There’s plenty in Patrick’s actual position to disagree with. Your embellishment isn’t necessary (or helpful).
You responded to about 1/10 of my post, keiths.
Patrick guanoed a comment like that from me. The irony is you are saying that in defense of Patrick.
I don’t hold Patrick’s guano decision against him too much, but I just have to point out it would be interesting to see what he does now. I thank him for spending time moderating this site, it’s a job I would never sign up for.
Sandbox isn’t Noyau so I think the usual rules apply as they do in other threads.
Patrick,
The fact that most people consider free trade and freedom of movement to be the most important goals does not mean that they regard the others as unimportant.
Other goals, such as the promotion of human rights, are also important. Even you have conceded that the protection of individual rights is an important function of the US federal government, for which treaties among the states would be inadequate:
keiths:
Patrick:
The protection of individual rights is an important goal of the EU — hence the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.
If the protection of individual rights against state abuses justifies a federal government (and not merely a treaty), as you say, then why doesn’t the same hold true for the EU?
stcordova,
I’ve said it many times, but I’ll say it again: Guanoing is a waste of time and effort, and rules that penalize honesty and reward dishonesty are bad rules.
keiths,
Yeah, i’ve already responded to all that. You’re just repeating yourself.
walto,
You’ve responded, but you haven’t supported your claim.
Because you can’t.
keiths,
Maybe if you said this another couple of dozen times, it would magically become true?
Worth a shot anyhow.
walto,
You simply can’t bring yourself to admit your mistake, can you?
If you were right that Patrick is advocating the dissolution of federal, state, and local governments in favor of treaties, then you’d be able to supply a quote to that effect.
Wow–robot mode, eh keiths?
Excuse me while I ZZzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
It’s a constant argument of general sentiment weighed against a plethora of detail, some positive, some not. It’s as if, overlaid on the ballot question, different questions were being asked: “Do you hate bureaucracy?”, or “Do you prefer all decisions to be made by British people?”, “Is there too much immigration?” “Do you think Cameron a twat?”, etc etc. The issues are too complex to reduce to binary questions and ideological slogans. Add in the ridiculous amount of scurrilous myth passed around the internet and the media about bananas, account auditing and supposedly unelected officials. One would be hard pressed to find a positive story, ever, in the Daily Mail, and yet the EU promotes many goods that no-one seems to notice.
Leaving the house this morning, I noticed on the side of the fibre-broadband box at the end of the street: “funded by the EU regional development fund”. Many of the regions with a preponderance of Leave voters are those receiving the highest proportion of such cash.
On a lighter note, there is a twee meme circulating where Pooh asks Piglet which way he voted.
“Leave”
“Oh”
“Are we still friends?”
“Yes, we’re still friends, Piglet”.
Numerous funny variants have surfaced where a deeper discussion emerges.
Piglet: “I wanted to get back control of the Hundred Acre Wood”.
Pooh: “You never had control of the Hundred Acre Wood. You’re a fucking piglet”.
As I said, there I have no real dog in the EU debate aside from curiosity at this time, but there was potentially some financial interest at one time that eventually faded. I was talking to one of my associates about finance and was shooting the breeze about how low the rate of return was on savings accounts and CDs (certificates of deposit). He then quipped, “you can get 25% a year on Greek bonds”. We both broke out laughing. Greek bonds had a high yield because of the extraordinary risk of default, so the 25% return was obviously contingent on the hope there wasn’t default or at the least it was deferred until some sucker was willing to buy the bonds from you after you made 25% in a year on that piece of junk.
A strategy would be alternatively to buy a swap derivative and make a killing as collapse and default approached, etc.
I never followed through on the investment, too risky and way out of my expertise, but it sparked my curiosity why hedge funds were making such lucrative money on collapsing economies. The answer was simple, while all the politicians were proclaiming how great the EU was and all the rescue plans were being put together and all the pronouncements of victorious success of the political process to rescue the impoverished masses of Greece blah blah blah, as far as Greece was concerned it was so friggin obvious money going in the down the toilet and the EU just kept deferring default and making the crisis worse. But deferring the inevitable always bought time for certain financial groups to liquidate their positions while the counterparties to their trades (like swaps) were still solvent. There was always the game of chicken of how long to hold something before cashing it in. It was like tossing a live grenade around and you could profit as long as you held it and it didn’t explode before passing it to someone else who also hoped it didn’t explode while they squeezed a little profit from it before passing on to the next guy….
Sorry for the cynical view of the EU, but some in the financial community, especially those making serious money, think the masses of people in the EU are sheep that are ripe for financial exploitation and that the political process will help line certain pockets.
Huge bets were placed on the presumption EU and Greek cronies would make a disaster and those bets turned out right and were profitable. The counterparty on the swaps (aka the suckers who had to pay the hedge funds) was the Greek treasury that was loaned money by EU partners. Thank you very much EU for paying the profitable wagers of hedge funds…
One of my favorite hedge fund managers, Kyle Bass (a graduate of Texas Christian College):
“When Greece restructured its debt and prompted payout to these swaps, Bass’ investments reportedly stood to pay him 650 times his original buy-in. ” Bwahaha!
Bass was one of the few that came out publicly and reported his wager, there are others who made a killing betting on the stupidity of the EU and Greece, but haven’t made their wagers public. Probably a wise thing since some politicians take exception to people betting on their stupid political moves and profiting from such bets…
Hence, my not so high opinion of the EU at least as far as what it will do for Greece and its crony leaders.
As far as Brexit, I have no strong opinion except to say Brexit, imho, is in name only. The UK will continue trading and conduct commerce with EU countries. What’s helping the UK is the overspending by other governments making financial promises and commitments they can’t keep so the UK can be better off at least relative to other nations (like Greece). At least the UK didn’t get the Greek treatment.
Sure. There’s probably money to be made betting on the US sheep returning Trump.
At least we didn’t end up like Greece. Now there‘s a slogan to paste on a bus.
Now that’s just crazy talk.
Response in Moderation Issues.
Too many people measure government programs by their goals rather than their results.
Do you think that the EU would reign in the UK’s libel laws and requirement for peope to turn over their cryptographic keys on demand? Would it defend the right of holocaust deniers in Germany to speak freely? Should Turkey join, would it ensure that the Gay Pride march could take place? Would it recognize the right of all individuals to arm themselves for self-defense?
Of course it could, in theory. In practice it has not and will not. It provides no measurable value over treaty arrangements among the member states.
Response in Moderation Issues.
No need for a referendum on that at this point, is there?
The issue for the Leavers of my acquaintance, aside from the refugee situation, is the loss of sovereignity. The smaller the level of organization, the more influence an individual can have. You can work with the local council. You can get involved with a party and make one’s concerns known at the county level. You can even have the opportunity to ask questions or harangue one’s MP.
The EU is seen as too distant and disconnected. Even if you can get in touch with your own MEP, the decisions are being made by representatives from other countries with other cultures, values, and goals. Aside from freedom to trade and travel, why would anyone want to subject themselves to decisions made by such a body?
This is why the size and scope of the U.S. federal government needs to be significantly reduced, as well.
The guanoed comment is here.
Patrick,
I dare say, but it – like the bureaucracy question – is vague ideological sloganeering. It doesn’t translate into anything with real impact on people’s lives. They really want a say on the electrical goods labelling standards? Or the best way to deal with the manufacture of unpasteurised cheese? Fucksake. They see the latest anti-Europe bollocks being fed to them by the Daily Mail, and it feeds their prejudices. They want a bogey man to blame, and the EU is it. I see the lips curl when they say its name, hear the anger in their voices. It’s visceral. But I buy the general line that the regs are intended for the benefit of EU citizens. I really do. It doesn’t always work, you can’t agree with everything they do, but that’s life. The British government is no more immune to the negatives.
I think the Piglet quote hits the nail squarely on the head. I have as much power over national decisions as I do over international ones: pretty much fuck all. I’m a fucking piglet. The fact that there are local issues I could have control of is neither here nor there. These aren’t the issues we are talking of.
Indeed, with this vote, and despite all the sneering of “it’s Democracy. Suck It Up.”, I never felt like I had less of a say in anything, because (to my view) bullshit won. Latest: we are now facing cuts and higher taxes because of a fundamentally right-wing policy, mainly ideological, with extensive support among traditionally Left voters thanks to uncashable cheques on immigration. FFS.
ERRATA: I made a slight technical error on Bass’s swap trade. I actually don’t know that Greek treasury is the counterparty to the swap, but I do know for sure that Goldman Sachs made the Greek treasury the counterparty on a hidden swap, so the Greek treasury, the Greek people and the EU countries providing a bailout “loan” (HA! — loan — haha) were indirectly taken by Goldman Sachs. Perfectly legal, but a bit on the slick side. The whole sordid story is here:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-03-06/goldman-secret-greece-loan-shows-two-sinners-as-client-unravels
The CEO of Goldman Sach’s, Lloyd Blankfein famously said about his company, “We’re doing God’s work.” If I ever could admire a scoundrel it would be Lloyd Blankfein.
There are government bonds that are getting slowly more risky but which may increase in yield just like the Greek junk. And guess where they would be, hmm, California, Illinois and all those places in the USA that dwarf the Greek economy and went into fiscal disarray by promising contractually more than they could deliver.
Hedge fund managers owning all that junk can have their junk bonds transformed to high yield guaranteed securities courtesy of the US taxpayers. Thank you very much politicians and voters for obligating uninvolved parties to pay for your mistakes. If I were a hedge fund manager holding those bonds I’d be saying stuff like Joe Biden “paying your taxes is a your patriotic duty” and then laughing all the way to the bank.
Allan,
Right. Should Wyoming secede if it objects to the latest FDA food-labeling regulations? Brexit makes about as much sense. The “solution” is wildly disproportionate to the problem.
I think they want those decisions made at a more local level.
I beg your pardon, I don’t associate with Daily Mail readers!
You do have a point, though. Thanks for the conversation, it’s good to get additional perspectives.
I know this is probably not the best possible analogy, but I think of consolidated government as like monoculture agriculture. It is by far the most efficient way to produce food, so why isn’t it desirable.
Why is diversity in religion and culture so desirable, but not in government?
petrushka,
There is a lot of diversity among national governments within the EU regarding the vast bulk of laws. Homogeneity applies to border-free trade, and one can see the logic there.
Of course there are occasional voices calling for much, much more. It’s not policy though. While inside, we had powers of veto. Now, one less voice to oppose it.
My experience in life is that lawmaking and law enforcement tends to accumulate in the hands of aggressive and greedy people. a kind of Gresham’s Law.
There are times and places for regulations and prohibitions. There’s the commons: air, water, sanitation, and now the climate. I have no problem in principle with regulating the Commons.
I have no problem with government enforcing property laws and human rights laws. I have no problem with discussing human rights at a global level. I have no problem with discussing children’s rights at the global level.
But at the level of detail — what exactly , for example, is the most efficient way to transition away from fossil fuel — I believe in evolution. Diversity, variation, selection of the fittest, iterate. That’s pretty much the way I view all law and policy making. I think planning is both necessary and goon, but central planning just sucks.
My thoughts on this are utilitarian. What is the safest and most effective cultural practice that insures stability, and survival?
There are a lot of regulations that superficially sound good and maybe are good but they may result in loopholes that are more damaging than the intended goal.
Example: there is a limit on amount of ethanol that can be produced in the USA and used in the USA based on the carbon footprint. No limit on the amount of ethanol the USA can import and export however. So what ends up happening is ethanol in excess of the limits is exported by US companies to some foreign entity and then the USA imports huge amounts right back at a higher price. For all we know the export barges that left US shores just pump their ethanol into the import barges headed for US shores. Someone’s making money off this deal an loving it. Also there is a huge energy cost actually growing corn or whatever and then converting it to ethanol. I don’t know how much is gained by this shuffling of energy, but the subsidies line someone’s pocket.
One area where I feel regulations have been extremely beneficial and protective of the public welfare is the Aviation Industry in the USA. Relative to how badly things could turn out, airline travel is safer than driving in the USA. One thing tough, the aviation regulations were inspired by a lot of elements in private industry wanting to ensure the reputation of the industry.
I think the medical industry in the USA for all its problems has been generally good quality due to some degree of accountability.
Patrick,
Politics is difficult because its generally about trade-offs, and that people value things differently from each other.
I understand compromise and trading benefits.
But when I think about politics or business or any of the great controversies, I think about how systems should not be brittle.
Political systems that change their behavior radically as a result of an election or a change in leadership are brittle and poorly constituted. The political equivalent of an economic bubble.
keiths:
Patrick:
I know. Sometimes I forget that I’m your toady and that you don’t brook disagreement. Good thing I have walto to remind me.
Oho!
Testing…
Am I the only one who misses FrankenJoe?
I Think so.
radiation diagram test
Test.
I’m sure other members here remember Gil Dodgen who was an occasional contributor to UD. That he recently died unexpectedly from a pulmonary embolism (he was the same age as me) kind of makes me a little reflective. I’m helped by Jon Bartlett who has posted this link to Gil’s posts at UD.
Glancing through, noting some posts drew more comments than others, let me draw the reader’s attention to this one.
@ Keiths
That’s you as champignon, isn’t it?
I seemed to recall Gil posted here once. I wasn’t wrong. Here it is.
Alan,
Thanks for remembering Gil.
Sal