Eurozone up the spout

Energize said:
The Roman empire was destroyed by a stock market collapse? Wow you learn something new everyday.
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Check out the Crisis of the Third Century. The economic collapse was incredibly dramatic. The Roman Emperors kept creating more and more currency to fund their wars. The currency was devalued so much that parts of the empire stopped accepting it as a form of payment.

It's an incredibly interesting period of economic history.
 
scorza said:
Nothing to do with the 6% contraction in GDP caused largely by the banks then eh? UK GDP is still 4% below its 2008 peak.

Also amazes me how we can go from "the brink of bankruptcy" to a safe-haven enjoying historic low borrowing rates in the course of a year despite not having actually cut spending. Surely a Conservative politician wouldn't mislead us by over-exaggerating. Oh and before everyone pats Boy George on the back about what a good job he's doing, having low borrowing rates isn't indicative of a healthy economy: http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2011/08/economic-osborne-rates Though tbf right now stagnant sounds good, it remains to be seen whether we'll continue to be stagnant if the US and Eurozone can't get their acts together.

Still, at least the Daily Fail has it all in perspective with its main headline today: One couple, 57 flowers ... and the meadow they made a field of dreams
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I like how you always point the finger at the Tories.

It's almost as if they were in power for the boom years. :D

Oh how Labour would have gotten us in so much of a better position if they were left in power, what with their past record from the last 10 years. :cool:
 
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Raymond Lin said:
The romans had running water and sewage works, exotic fruits and what not...
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Yeah and the Roman Republic nearly collapsed due to economic crises, there were social revolutions, drastic overhauls, the Roman Empire then later collapsed.

Also, the Romans did, but the majority of the population didn't like they do today. Only urbanised areas had the above really.

Energize said:
The Roman empire was destroyed by a stock market collapse? Wow you learn something new everyday.
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Roman Republican expansion completely devalued the price of gold, pocketed the rich and left the majority of the population impoverished. As quoted above, see the Crisis (es) of the Third Century in the Roman Empire.
 
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all empires go through similar stages - birth, growth, maturation, senescence

not much can be done about it. in my opinion it boils down to the masses being given too many liberties and not enough responsibilities as the empire grows older - then the whole setup becomes unsustainable and collapses
 
scorza said:
Also amazes me how we can go from "the brink of bankruptcy"
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Because if the markets turned on us (like they did with Italy recently, EU's third biggest economy), we would end up in default - we couldn't support the bond yields. We're already borrowing to pay the interest on our existing debts. We can only do that so much.

Just be thankful that the market has confidence in the UK economy and that this hasn't happened yet.

Who knows if the market would still have confidence if we weren't going ahead with a 3.4% cuts programme over 5 years, but whatever, it is currently working.
 
Whenever I hear Europe or EU these days I cringe and can't help but think **** off with all the crap countries that 'we' let in that serve no purpose other than soaking up our EU contributions.
 
Dutch Guy said:
Whenever I hear Europe or EU these days I cringe and can't help but think **** off with all the crap countries that 'we' let in that serve no purpose other than soaking up our EU contributions.
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all those little countries aren't useless, they form very effective point sharing cartels in the eurovision song contest...
 
Who else has the news on in a window waiting for the US employment numbers out at 13:30? :o

Edit: I wonder if it'll be like the FCOJ crop report in Trading Places. :D
 
scorza said:
Or how about just going back to a mixed market economy, rather than the free-market snafu we've had for the last 20 or so.
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I like the idea of altruistic capitalism myself.

But it wouldn't work as people are **** holes.
 
Hatter The Mad said:
It works in some American states where charity and altruism is ingrained in the culture and matched with low tax rates, like Texas
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its an interesting idea - i bet people would feel happier if they gave 50% of their income to charity, as opposed to being taxed and letting the government decide "worthy causes"
 
Hmm, so there were 117,00 new non-farm jobs last month then. The month before last they were expecting 85,000 but only actually got 18,000.

Good news, big turnaround or just very convenient?
 
bazaarboy said:
its an interesting idea - i bet people would feel happier if they gave 50% of their income to charity, as opposed to being taxed and letting the government decide "worthy causes"
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But then 99% of the people will keep the money in their pocket instead of donating it to a country so they can buy guns to kill their neighbours ..... I mean so the country can feed it's people.
 
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