EPTEuropean Politico-economics QA Mega-thread - Page 595
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
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WhiteDog
France8650 Posts
On November 22 2016 07:59 Big J wrote: I am confused WhiteDog, didn't you call me out when I said that we have a European problem with conservative neoliberal politics? Yet, here you are talking about the lack of Keynesian economics. I didn't disagree at all with you on the diagnostic that europe have a problem with neoliberal, what I questionned is that you made it seem like we could change the situation by electing different people or that the european union could be something else than a neoliberal agenda. | ||
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Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
On November 22 2016 07:54 WhiteDog wrote: The most developped countries (France, Germany) have some difficulties to achieve gain in productivity ; don't tell me the eurozone is in this case : there's ton of growth potential in portugal, greece, southern italy, and the north could very well benefit from it, but we don't want to invest there. Also, we just need to invest in clean energy. Debt does not mean much, you can force the central bank to pay the debt itself if needed. Greece debt is 2 % of europe's debt. Also you know there are two explanation for secular stagnation : lack of demand and investment or the dynamics of modern innovation (that are low on job creation and do not really benefit the economy like the old one did). Let's split : the two explanations are right to a certain degree. Yes, I do not disagree in principle with the anti-cyclical model, it's a mainstream economic position for a reason. But you should not shake off the typical German focus on structural problems, it makes sense to look at. there's some deeper change that has a lot to do digitalisation and how we calculate and talk about economic growth to begin with. Many services we produce nowadays are notoriously hard to even measure and if we just keep only looking at the business cycle we might be blind to problems that are entirely new. | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
On November 22 2016 08:09 WhiteDog wrote: I didn't disagree at all with you on the diagnostic that europe have a problem with neoliberal, what I questionned is that you made it seem like we could change the situation by electing different people or that the european union could be something else than a neoliberal agenda. Well, why do you think you could change it on a national level though, when the socialists you can vote for are of the likes of Hollande, Blair, or Schröder? Since the people that vote and get voted for on a national and EU level are the same i very much believe it is - if not the same at least - a similar problem. | ||
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WhiteDog
France8650 Posts
On November 22 2016 08:20 Big J wrote: Well, why do you think you could change it on a national level though, when the socialists you can vote for are of the likes of Hollande, Blair, or Schröder? Since the people that vote and get voted for on a national and EU level are the same i very much believe it is - if not the same at least - a similar problem. I don't. I just rage on politics, I don't believe there's any positive solution. I might have to vote between Fillon and Le Pen in the coming election, and if you want me to be actually objective, Le Pen might be better than Fillon, so you see the kind of shit I'm in. On November 22 2016 08:15 Nyxisto wrote: Yes, I do not disagree in principle with the anti-cyclical model, it's a mainstream economic position for a reason. But you should not shake off the typical German focus on structural problems, it makes sense to look at. there's some deeper change that has a lot to do digitalisation and how we calculate and talk about economic growth to begin with. Many services we produce nowadays are notoriously hard to even measure and if we just keep only looking at the business cycle we might be blind to problems that are entirely new. German are biased that's the problem : they talk about structural problems, but only greeks, italian, spanish structural problem, like the problem is not european. | ||
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Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
Also some interesting data on voter blocs in Europe: https://yougov.co.uk/news/2016/11/16/trump-brexit-front-national-afd-branches-same-tree/ | ||
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WhiteDog
France8650 Posts
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Incognoto
France10239 Posts
On November 22 2016 07:16 WhiteDog wrote: It just does understand the basic economic principle ... I don't know what to say more than that : 1. ovestate the benefit of economic liberalism ; Well this doesn't mean much, economic liberalism is perfectly normal it's what goes hand in hand with economic freedom. I want to start a company, I'm allowed to do that.. 2. Fiscal policy and monetary policy are supposed to go hand in hand (what is called policy mix). One of the key component to good economic policy is the importance of contra cyclical policies meant to smooth down economic fluctuation : so in period of low growth you need to spend, and in a period of high growth you need to accumulate reserve and pay off your debt (so the core of the problem of the european debt is, in this regard, not the spending, but the lack of growth) - the video oppose the two kinda stupidly ; I've heard this one before touted countless times. Assuming the government spends more and growth does not come, doesn't that mean that you've essentially made the debt problem worse without any actual benefit? Moreover, what kind of public spending actually fosters growth? Do you think that tearing apart a perfectly fine road, only to replace it with the exact same road (as I've seen countless times here where I live), actually helps the economy grow? Do you think renovating perfectly functional train stations (Guingamp) actually helps growth? These aren't productive infrastructures, they're just one-time governmental contracts which put money into the pockets of the BTP sector, which means fuck-all for the rest of France's serfs. So my question is: what is actually beneficial for the government to invest in? 3. Make it seem like living in the euro is great because you have germany's credit card, while understating the opposite effect (Germany living with a underevaluated currency that give them an edge towards their opponents) ; It's perfectly valid to say that an undervalued currency gives an edge to Germany in the global market. That's not a bad thing, on the contrary, Germany's success is Europe's success, right? Or should we be hating Germany or something? I don't understand. 4. The idea that the euro is responsible for the high debt level is ridiculous considering debt is high everywhere in the world (see Japan or the US of A - the real problem is that the euro does not deal well with high level debt, not that it favor such debt) and that Germany had one of the highest debt level in the eurozone before the crisis (never respecting the maastricht treaty) ; We aren't talking about Japan or the USA, we're talking about Europe. It makes sense that Europe should be free of debt, no? Or is the 2008 crisis (which France is still suffering from) imaginary? If the euro doesn't deal well with high debt (which is kind of what the video I posted was referring to), then isn't that an issue which needs to be addressed? 5. No understand of debt cycle (Hyman Minsky's work) ; If you don't explain it yourself then this is a moot point. It's always tiring to try to discuss something with someone only to have them say "you should do your own research!!" and dodge explaining ideas themselves. 6. Greeks workers works more than any other kind of workers in the eurozone ; This valorization of germans is also dumb, the core reason for their success is their old and efficient industry, not their working ethics. Overall, it does not seems to know anything about the situation before the crisis because the greeks had the highest growth and was viewed as a good exemple of the success of the euro ; The video I posted shows that Greece's growth was artificial due to borrowing more money which it was unable to pay back. So you can't really point at greek's growth before the crisis as anything good, it's part of the problem, lol. Greek being unable to pay for its debt is factual: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-13798000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_government-debt_crisis You can't pay for growth by borrowing money which you can't pay back, which is exactly what happened here. France and Germany paid for the money Greece stole, which is also factual. I won't discuss the stereotypes because as we all agreed before, those aren't relevant nor are they fair. 7. Understate (or does not even talk about) the negative effect (which are PROCYCLICAL) of austerity measures, and the fact that the single greatest economies in the world (see the US of A again) are HEAVILY CONTRA CYCLICAL (they never push for procyclical policies, cauz they're not dumb). It's fair enough to say that they don't nuance the negative effects of austerity measures. However I'm wondering if you can really get away with not paying back debt? It's not that austerity is good or bad, it's that debt is a very real thing governments need to deal with, otherwise they default like Greece. It's like saying "hey I can't pay myself a Porsche because I have this mortage, this is SO BAD". It's not that austerity is a good measure, it's that it's necessary to cut public spending because like it or not, it's better than going bankrupt. It is the proactive and responsible response, as far as I know. 8. Does not discuss the role of inflation (which has been low in europe - and in the world - for years) in the high debt level we have today and in paying back that debt, nor does it seem to understand that a federal state in europe would come with a common fiscal policy (true) but also fiscal flow (the real fix to the euro would be, in this regard, the fact that german just finance the necessary infrastructure in Greece). So are you agreeing with the video by saying that Europe needs a common fiscal policy? Or are you saying something else? We're living in a time where we need gov spending, more than ever. Or maybe we can cut government spending where it's not needed? Are you saying that France will succumb to the plague if SNCF train drivers are required to retire at the same age as the rest of France's serfs? France is already spending an astounding amount of of its GDP in public spending, but there's already NO GROWTH or WORK lol. Isn't that proof that we need LESS gov spending? The proof for that is that the interest rates are still low on public debt : private agents are not ready to spend in private investments (because they don't see growth) and prefer public spending because the world has bad anticipations on the future - it's a "nervous depression" (Keynes). The high level of debt could just disappear in ten years with a good enough growth / inflation (like it did after the 2nd world war, where the debt level was at 100 - 150 % of GDP ...). This growth you're talking about is a fairy tale. There is no magical growth which is going to magically fix all your problems, especially not if you burden countries with unbearable taxes. Communism is a proven failure. Austerity would basically push us into years of low growth and low inflation (like we had since the crisis) - the european lost decade. Austerity isn't a choice, it's an obligation due to reckless public spending. Do you disagree with that? Or should we all default and crash the world's economy? Not to mention that we need key spending in specific infrastructure (green energy). If we go for austerity measure, we would definitly cut in everything that does not touch the population first to prevent global discontent (those needed infrastructures). Hey, let's be real. What infrastructures are required for growth? I think it's a great idea to invest in those. The question is, what are they?! "infrastructure" "infrastructure" "infrastructure" is repeated all the time, but nothing substantial is ever said. So what are you proposing to ACTUALLY invest in which would make companies competitive again and start hiring again? Edit: fuck this post is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too long | ||
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WhiteDog
France8650 Posts
On November 22 2016 17:54 Incognoto wrote: Honestly I'm having trouble understanding your views so I'm just going to pick apart this post, to try to understand you. No you don't understand : the video basically assume that increasing trade is beneficial and that it prevent war. This is up to discussion. Here is, for exemple a critic of globalism made by Dani Rodrik after the Trump election https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/trump-win-economists-responsible-by-dani-rodrik-2016-11 2. Fiscal policy and monetary policy are supposed to go hand in hand (what is called policy mix). One of the key component to good economic policy is the importance of contra cyclical policies meant to smooth down economic fluctuation : so in period of low growth you need to spend, and in a period of high growth you need to accumulate reserve and pay off your debt (so the core of the problem of the european debt is, in this regard, not the spending, but the lack of growth) - the video oppose the two kinda stupidly ; I've heard this one before touted countless times. Assuming the government spends more and growth does not come, doesn't that mean that you've essentially made the debt problem worse without any actual benefit? Moreover, what kind of public spending actually fosters growth? Do you think that tearing apart a perfectly fine road, only to replace it with the exact same road (as I've seen countless times here where I live), actually helps the economy grow? Do you think renovating perfectly functional train stations (Guingamp) actually helps growth? These aren't productive infrastructures, they're just one-time governmental contracts which put money into the pockets of the BTP sector, which means fuck-all for the rest of France's serfs. So my question is: what is actually beneficial for the government to invest in? I really don't have the time to give you a full course on basic economic thinking. In accounting there are various equations that are always right : GDP + Imports = Household Consumption + Gov spending + Firm investment + Exports + Stock variation. If you increase gov spending, GDP + Imports increase, always. Two problems : what if the increase in spending just goes to imports (and thus benefit other countries, hello germany - here you need to permit fiscal flow back from germany to Greece to permit growth). Second problem : does this increase in gov spending will have multiplier effect on the production or not ? Does this governmet spending will eccho and benefit private firm and increase their investment in order to increase future GDP even more ? If you just produce X wealth that exactly correspond to the X money you've spent through the government, it's not efficient. The point is that the multiplier is positive in recession and usually negative in expansion (we are in a recession). Here : First, we estimate multipliers for a large number of OECD countries, rather than just for the United States, again allowing for state dependence and controlling for information provided by predictions. Second, we adapt our previous methodology to use direct projections rather than the SVAR approach to estimate multipliers, to economize on degrees of freedom and to relax the assumptions on impulse response functions imposed by the SVAR method. Third, we estimate responses not only of output but also of other macroeconomic aggregates. Our findings confirm those of our earlier paper. In particular, multipliers of government purchases are larger in recession, and controlling for real-time predictions of government purchases tends to increase the estimated multipliers of government spending in recession. http://www.nber.org/papers/w17447.pdf 3. Make it seem like living in the euro is great because you have germany's credit card, while understating the opposite effect (Germany living with a underevaluated currency that give them an edge towards their opponents) ; It's perfectly valid to say that an undervalued currency gives an edge to Germany in the global market. That's not a bad thing, on the contrary, Germany's success is Europe's success, right? Or should we be hating Germany or something? I don't understand. Your bias is showing : Germany's success is europe success, but Greece failure is Greece failure. The two are the opposite side of the same coin is what I meant. You can't fix Greece failure if you don't point out that Germany's success is artificially supported by the euro, and thus that Germany owe something to Greece. 4. The idea that the euro is responsible for the high debt level is ridiculous considering debt is high everywhere in the world (see Japan or the US of A - the real problem is that the euro does not deal well with high level debt, not that it favor such debt) and that Germany had one of the highest debt level in the eurozone before the crisis (never respecting the maastricht treaty) ; We aren't talking about Japan or the USA, we're talking about Europe. It makes sense that Europe should be free of debt, no? Or is the 2008 crisis (which France is still suffering from) imaginary? If the euro doesn't deal well with high debt (which is kind of what the video I posted was referring to), then isn't that an issue which needs to be addressed? Yes we are talking about Japan and the USA and all the rest of the world. The debt level are high everywhere, there are reasons. France is not suffering from its debt, but something from something else that ask for gov spending. 5. No understand of debt cycle (Hyman Minsky's work) ; If you don't explain it yourself then this is a moot point. It's always tiring to try to discuss something with someone only to have them say "you should do your own research!!" and dodge explaining ideas themselves. Then look at it on google as see how the private sector behave in regards to debt : you'll understand why the government needs to have countra cyclical spending. 6. Greeks workers works more than any other kind of workers in the eurozone ; This valorization of germans is also dumb, the core reason for their success is their old and efficient industry, not their working ethics. Overall, it does not seems to know anything about the situation before the crisis because the greeks had the highest growth and was viewed as a good exemple of the success of the euro ; The video I posted shows that Greece's growth was artificial due to borrowing more money which it was unable to pay back. So you can't really point at greek's growth before the crisis as anything good, it's part of the problem, lol. Greek being unable to pay for its debt is factual: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-13798000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_government-debt_crisis You can't pay for growth by borrowing money which you can't pay back, which is exactly what happened here. France and Germany paid for the money Greece stole, which is also factual. I won't discuss the stereotypes because as we all agreed before, those aren't relevant nor are they fair. You need to understand what is inflation then. If you don't believe growth will save the day, look at inflation. 7. Understate (or does not even talk about) the negative effect (which are PROCYCLICAL) of austerity measures, and the fact that the single greatest economies in the world (see the US of A again) are HEAVILY CONTRA CYCLICAL (they never push for procyclical policies, cauz they're not dumb). It's fair enough to say that they don't nuance the negative effects of austerity measures. However I'm wondering if you can really get away with not paying back debt? It's not that austerity is good or bad, it's that debt is a very real thing governments need to deal with, otherwise they default like Greece. It's like saying "hey I can't pay myself a Porsche because I have this mortage, this is SO BAD". It's not that austerity is a good measure, it's that it's necessary to cut public spending because like it or not, it's better than going bankrupt. It is the proactive and responsible response, as far as I know. This pay back your debt is so funny, and your overall behavior is funny too (like Greeks bought out Porsche ... lol). If you increase growth and inflation, you increase government revenu and you diminish the weight of debt. Cutting back debt lower government revenu and increase debt : look at Greece, it happened, debt level are higher now than they were before austerity measure. Do you understand that cutting government spending is not a solution now ? 8. Does not discuss the role of inflation (which has been low in europe - and in the world - for years) in the high debt level we have today and in paying back that debt, nor does it seem to understand that a federal state in europe would come with a common fiscal policy (true) but also fiscal flow (the real fix to the euro would be, in this regard, the fact that german just finance the necessary infrastructure in Greece). So are you agreeing with the video by saying that Europe needs a common fiscal policy? Or are you saying something else? The problem are collective so the solution must be collective. I suggest you go read the last European Economy 2016 published by the OFCE (just 10 €) you'll see that : private household and firm are reducing their debt, which is why gov spending is needed (counter balance the negative effect of the private sector reducing its debt) pp17-19 ; the Greece debt reduction was a fiasco and totally failed (pp. 104-113) ; that the real cause of the european problem are differences in current account (Germany is the problem), divergences in prices and wages (lack of common law on labor) ; divergence in productivity (lack of investment in specific part of europe, like Greece lol) (pp. 91-100). Here a little abstract (traduction from me, p. 109) : The successive greek governments tried to put in place a specifically violent politic of austerity, responding to the demand of the european institutions and the IMF. Between 2009 and 2014, the nominal deficit moved from 15.3 % to 3.5 % of the GDP [...] In an economic context already specifically degraded, such high scale adjustment could not miss to create an aggravation of the violence of the crisis. In effect, the european institutions and the IMF systematically underestimated the impact of the budgetary spending on the general level of activity. Their previsions were always more optimistic than what happened, because they were based on hypothesis of multiplier way too weak for an economy already in difficulty. [...] In this regard, if the public finance were cleanse, the result was obtained at the price of a true depression : the GDP has drop by almost 25 % between 2008 and 2013 So basically the Greeks lost 25 % of their production by reducing their deficit from 15 % of GDP to 3 % of GDP. If you want that for France, you're suicidal. How do you pay back your debt if you produce 25 % less wealth every year ? Also : http://voxeu.org/article/what-size-fiscal-multiplier-estimate-you-can-t-refuse How much more demand, output, and employment can we expect from expansionary fiscal stimulus? Conversely, how much macroeconomic pain can we expect from a contraction dictated by the need to keep public debt on a sustainable path? These questions have become most compelling during different phases of the recent global crisis (see Barro and Redlick 2009, Almunia et al. 2009, Aizenman and Kaur Pasricha 2010, and Auerbach and Gorodnichencko 2010 as just a few examples from this site). Time-series studies typically suggest that the effects of public spending are modest overall. Moving away from linear models, multipliers are instead found to be large in specific circumstances, especially during episodes of financial and banking crises. In Corsetti et al. (2010), for instance, the point estimate for the multiplier of government spending is as high as 2 at times of financial crisis (see also Ilzetzki et al. 2009). In a recent paper (Acconcia et al. 2011), we report a new empirical estimate of the multiplier, taking yet another approach. Instead of looking at the aggregate national data over time, we look at the output effects of spending on public works at the local level, focusing on differences across administrative units, i.e. provinces, within Italy. We find that the multiplier is as high as 1.4 on impact, and reaches 2 over two years. Overall, the multiplier is significantly larger than 1. | ||
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stilt
France2751 Posts
On November 21 2016 10:20 TheDwf wrote: Not my fault if immigration systematically comes first when FN voters are asked what's their main concern in politics, you know... There are enough studies/polls about this, which beats your “but my sister!” argument. http://www.ipsos.fr/sites/default/files/attachments/rapport_svv_2012_-_23_avril_2012_-_10h.pdf (See for instance p. 18.) http://www.ifop.com/media/poll/3519-1-study_file.pdf (page 6) http://www.ifop.com/?option=com_publication&type=poll&id=3504 http://bfmbusiness.bfmtv.com/france/2017-les-sujets-economiques-et-sociaux-au-coeur-des-preoccupations-des-francais-1032927.html For 64% of the French people, economic and social themes are more important than identity & security. For 76% of the FN electorate, identity & security matter more. (Sorry for people who don't speak French.) If there was that much equivalence between the old communist and the FN vote, Le Pen and Mélenchon's electorates would be much more porous, which is not the case. New FN = old PC is one of those clichés mainstream medias love to spout nonstop so that centrists and pseudo-reasonables can keep singing “extremes are all the same!” The transfer phenomenon existed, but it's been exaggerated. The FN is there since the 1980s, they didn't wait the Philippot line to exist and score decently... The fact that you put me in the “liberal left” case is beyond hilarious, almost stopped reading there. Sorry if I do not follow blindly the sondage, it does not work so well lately. The same could be said about your last argument, the FN will score around 30% and maybe more, that's way more than decently (they were around 15% before the 2000s) And yes, you can laugh, that's not my problem, you’re liberal, your views on religion, individual freedom, multiculturalism is clearly some kind of communautarism who is exactly the sort of society wanted by globalization : a bunch of communities who hate each other, white, brown, christian, muslim. I guess that’s logic, if you imagine a state extremely limited with the current processus of economical derugalation, the stuff who will do society should be religion or ethnies. Liberalism is not only about economy. Moreover, yes, thinking that racism is currently the motor of the far right is totally stupid and is clearly an analysis made by a liberal who only saw stuffs by a racial prism, maybe because you’re living in the silk and golden tower ? (I prefer using ethnic but apparently, the liberal left uses too the concept of race in french language even if it is only on « sociological terms ») | ||
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Incognoto
France10239 Posts
Your bias is showing : Germany's success is europe success, but Greece failure is Greece failure. The two are the opposite side of the same coin is what I meant. You can't fix Greece failure if you don't point out that Germany's success is artificially supported by the euro, and thus that Germany owe something to Greece. I think Greece's failure is Europe's failure, no double standards. I want to better understand the difficulties faced by the European Union, I don't have any political agenda to push. In particular I'm looking to better understand the implications of a dissociated central bank and fiscal policy, as well as understanding why austerity is comparable to aborting kittens to some people, especially when reduced government spending is something I consider beneficial in some circumstances. I digress, let me read your post in detail. | ||
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WhiteDog
France8650 Posts
On November 22 2016 20:14 Incognoto wrote: I will read your post more in detail but I just want to snip this part out: I think Greece's failure is Europe's failure, no double standards. I want to better understand the difficulties faced by the European Union, I don't have any political agenda to push. In particular I'm looking to better understand the implications of a dissociated central bank and fiscal policy, as well as understanding why austerity is comparable to aborting kittens to some people, especially when reduced government spending is something I consider beneficial in some circumstances. I digress, let me read your post in detail. Then the solution must be paid by everyone, not just by forcing Greece into poverty ? "I consider beneficial in some circumstances." It is beneficial, just not in low growth situations ... Economic policy should go against the economic fluctuations : you reduce debt when growth is high, you increase spending when growth is low. That's just how it is. The european union's policies are always pro cyclical, it's one of its major problem. | ||
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TheDwf
France19747 Posts
On November 22 2016 20:00 stilt wrote: Sorry if I do not follow blindly the sondage, it does not work so well lately. Yeah, of course. When data contradicts your anecdotal evidence, dismiss data. Those polls were not even “who would win the election” polls, so this counter-argument falls flat. I also talked about studies, since political sociology does study the FN electorate and its motivations; how are you going to dismiss their similar conclusions? Of course there are millions of people who vote FN, so you can find various motivations (including a protest vote). I never said that socio-economic questions plays no role in the FN vote (main concern ≠ sole concern), or lower trust in institutions, medias, politicians). We are all aware of the consequences of desindustrialization in some regions, or in a broader sense globalization—which the FN electorate rejects. Still, immigration and insecurity have been the core themes of the FN for decades. And yes, you can laugh, that's not my problem, you’re liberal, your views on religion, individual freedom, multiculturalism is clearly some kind of communautarism who is exactly the sort of society wanted by globalization : a bunch of communities who hate each other, white, brown, christian, muslim. I guess that’s logic, if you imagine a state extremely limited with the current processus of economical derugalation, the stuff who will do society should be religion or ethnies. Liberalism is not only about economy. “Communautarism” is an empty word void of any meaning, ask yourself why this 20 years old word is almost exclusively used to point fingers at Muslims nowadays. Ask yourself why it was used against gays when they were demanding equality of rights. Ask yourself why centres of economical or political power are never accused of “communautarism” despite them over-concentrating old white rich male from superior classes (see the sociological composition of députés compared with the society, for instance). Hint: the majority uses this trash concept against minorities whenever they ask for equality, claiming that they threaten the natural, unitary body of the nation, want special rules/want to secede from others/threaten France's glorious Universalism, blabla. Please just make a mental note each time this concept is used; compare if similar situations do not exist in which this accusation is never employed; see the blatant double standards, and make your own conclusions… Moreover, yes, thinking that racism is currently the motor of the far right is totally stupid and is clearly an analysis made by a liberal who only saw stuffs by a racial prism, maybe because you’re living in the silk and golden tower ? (I prefer using ethnic but apparently, the liberal left uses too the concept of race in french language even if it is only on « sociological terms ») Another strawman. I said that immigration/insecurity/islam/identity mattered more than Europe or economy for them, you translate it by: “you think the racism is currently the motor of the far right, hence you're a liberal who only sees stuff by a racism prism”. Don't know what to say, really, those are completely different ideas. Try to pay attention to what I say instead of forcing your reject of the American left (since you seem to reason as we were in the US context for some reason) down my throat. And enough with your “you live in a bubble” or “maybe you live in a silk and golden tower,” you know nothing about my life and those ad hominem from you are really pathetic. | ||
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WhiteDog
France8650 Posts
Not to mention their extremist kill people. Just because the rich actually are communautarist does not make muslim's communautarism acceptable. The worse is that the left - the true left you know - have been fighting for years against the communautarism of the rich : against private school, for mixity in housing and education, etc. But now, somehow, because it's the muslim, it's racism. klol | ||
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Acrofales
Spain18074 Posts
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WhiteDog
France8650 Posts
Communautarianism is not a good translation of communautarisme ; the two context are too different to compare them : in France there is a way to understand and represent the nation that's very different from the anglosaxons. | ||
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xM(Z
Romania5281 Posts
ISTANBUL — President Tayyip Erdogan was quoted Sunday as saying that Turkey did not need to join the European Union “at all costs” and could instead become part of a security bloc dominated by China, Russia and Central Asian nations. NATO member Turkey’s prospects of joining the EU look more remote than ever after 11 years of negotiations. European leaders have been critical of its record on democratic freedoms, while Ankara has grown increasingly exasperated by what it sees as Western condescension. ... “Turkey must feel at ease. It mustn’t say ‘for me it’s the European Union at all costs.’ That’s my view,” Erdogan was quoted by the Hurriyet newspaper as telling reporters on his plane on the way back from a visit to Pakistan and Uzbekistan. “Why shouldn’t Turkey be in the Shanghai Five? I said this to (Russian President) Mr Putin, to (Kazakh President) Nazarbayev, to those who are in the Shanghai Five now,” he said. “I hope that if there is a positive development there, I think if Turkey were to join the Shanghai Five, it will enable it to act with much greater ease.” Turkish membership of the SCO, which had initially not included Uzbekistan and been known as the Shanghai Five, would be likely to alarm Western allies and fellow NATO members. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan speak Turkic languages, and Ankara signed up in 2013 as a “dialogue partner” saying it shared “the same destiny” as members of the bloc. Mongolia, India, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan are SCO observers, while Belarus, like Turkey, is a dialogue partner. Dialogue partners are entitled to take part in ministerial-level and some other meetings of the SCO, but do not have voting rights. Erdogan last week urged Turks to be patient until the end of the year over relations with Europe and said a referendum could be held on EU membership in 2017. Edit: i think i quoted from two articles there; the second is http://www.voanews.com/a/erdogan-turkey-doesnt-need-eu-at-all-costs/3604259.html | ||
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xM(Z
Romania5281 Posts
if we take into account Trump, Brexit, the parroted fall of the Great Germany and ignore the french, it looks like the Balkans are in for some rough times this century. | ||
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LegalLord
United Kingdom13775 Posts
On November 23 2016 00:44 xM(Z wrote: http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2016/11/22/major-foreign-policy-shift-turkey-abandoning-eu-sco.html Edit: i think i quoted from two articles there; the second is http://www.voanews.com/a/erdogan-turkey-doesnt-need-eu-at-all-costs/3604259.html Turkey should definitely learn not to piss off both the West and the East at the same time. They're in hot water with both the NATO/EU folk and the Eastern powers (including but very far from limited to shooting down a bomber for no justifiable reason). They backed themselves into a corner by being a royal pain to work with. Edit: I decided to scan through the wiki page for China-Turkey relations and found this head-scratcher. Wtf? On 4 July 2015, 2,000 Turkish nationalists protesting against China fasting ban mistakenly attack Korean tourists in Istanbul which led to China issuing travel warning to its citizens traveling to Turkey.[27][28] The ruling AKP party in power in Turkey has different factions, some of them nationalists who want to inflame tensions with China over Uyghurs, and other pragmatic members who want to maintain good relations with China and believe the Uyghur issue is being abused to spoil relations between China and Turkey by the United States, some other Islamist AKP have accused Rebiya Kadeer of being an "American agent" and "infidel".[29] Turkey has had to follow its own country's interests first with a pragmatic approach to the situation of Turkic peoples in other countries like Uyghurs, Gagauz, and Crimean Tatars.[30] Devlet Bahçeli, a leader from Turkey's MHP (Nationalist Movement Party), said that the attacks by MHP affiliated Turkish youth on South Korean tourists was "understandable", telling the Turkish news paper Hurriyet that: "What feature differentiates a Korean from a Chinese? They see that they both have slanted eyes. How can they tell the difference?".[31] Another translation of his remarks was : "What is the difference between a Korean and a Chinese anyway? They both have slitty eyes. Does it make any difference?"[32][33] A Uighur staffed, Turkish owned Chinese restaurant was assaulted by Turkish nationalists, who have also attacked the Dutch consulate which they thought was the Russian consulate.[34][35] | ||
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xM(Z
Romania5281 Posts
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