I’m back, baby!
Following a few drinks, one link takes us to another which eventually leads to Gates of Vienna and this:
Archonix — who is British — responded as follows:
First, the EU economies are not substantially better than they were in the 90s. Many are at the same level, others are worse.
Many are at the same level? Others are worse? How about simply Sadly, No! on both counts? For those who prefer PDF files, there’s always this. This is likely bound to be purely rhetorical, but why do some people seemingly feel compelled to assume that whatever they like to believe is necessarily true? Especially when the evidence is pretty clear and easily available? Or has the EU blocked access to the internet in Britain?
Ask any Italian what he thinks of the economy at the moment and if you’re lucky he’ll just shout at you for a few hours.
Why all the yelling, Italy?
Since 1992, economic policy in Italy has focused primarily on reducing government budget deficits and reining in the national debt. Successive Italian governments have adopted annual austerity budgets with cutbacks in spending, as well as new revenue raising measures. Italy has enjoyed a primary budget surplus, net of interest payments, for the last 7 years. The deficit in public administration declined to 1.4% of GDP in 2000, down from 7% in 1995. […] Italy entered an economic crisis in 2004, with GDP growth at about zero, although GDP has started to grow again as of 2005. Previously, Italy’s economy had accelerated from 0.7% growth in 1996 to 1.4% in 1999 and continued to rise to about 2.90% in 2000, which was closer to the EU projected growth rate of 3.10%.
Poor Italy. The good news is, there’s plenty more where that came from.
The only reason your dollars don’t seem to go far any more is because the dollar has fallen significantly, not because the euro has risen.
I don’t have less money, it’s just that I don’t have as much as I used to!
Unemployment has risen constantly within the euro zone since the euro was introduced[.]
Let’s see: in 2002 unemployment in the Euro 12 was 8.2%. In 2006 it was 7.9%. Anything else to add?
National debts are going up[.]
In 2002, debt deficit as a percentage of GDP in the Euro 12 countries was 2.5%. In 2006, it was 1.6%. Debt, which was 68.2% in 2002, was at 69.1% in 2006. God save the Queen.
And those are just the parts we managed to get through before the alkeehol made us unable to keep going.
I thought there was a comedy blog at this address.
Italians really truly are pissed off and suffering. Just got back. Nobody can afford the lifestyle they had grown used to.
As I have yet to take a coffee break, never mind a lunch break and it’s 3:11 PM and I started at 9:00 AM, I don’t have time to read the html or pdf files, but let me say this, I would dearly love it if Canada adopted the 4-day work week of, say, France (where productivity is, I understand, much higher than it is here).
Hmm, so they were able to cut the deficit, and provide state-sponsored services? Preposterous!
I’d like to take issue with the numbers Seb’s using.
Stop using numbers.
The the Gates of Vienna post is quite impressive, but Archonix really brings it all home with this little pearl of wisdom in the comments:
I thought there was a comedy blog at this address.
I thought there were intelligent, versatile commenters at this address.
Seb, is this a schwanz-tease or are you really going to be a regular again?
Um, it has nothing to do with the fact that I think you can actually get a working preview button to be a permanent feature of this site. Oh no…….
It’s worth noting that Bismark’s germany was definitely more democratic than the EU, no matter how one tries to spin otherwise.
Strangely, whenever there was a political crisis Bismarck – who knew that there was a c in Bismarck – would invade some teensy military target claiming that Germans were at risk.
So lemme get this straight. The economy, by most measures, is actually doing well, but the everyday working people don’t seem to be benefitting from it, and in fact seem to think that the the economy is not doing as well as the numbers might suggest. Something like that?
Hmmm, y’know that sounds like some other place I know. Why do you suppose this might be?
mikey
Archonix is quite clearly an Asterix character and therefore not only has no access to the internet but also no running water, no indoor plumbing and and no artificially flavoured corn snacks. No wonder he’s feeling hard done by
I thought there were intelligent, versatile commenters at this address.
Why the fuck would you think that? Has Kevin taught you nothing?
All roads from the Gates of Vienna lead to the conclusion that Mighty Europe is in the terlet. What shocks and disappoints me is that neither Baron Zemo, his goodly maiden Lady Lymph Node, nor their stalwart young neo-Oswaldian charge Asterix were able to pin Europe’s alleged economic woes on Muslims! I just kept reading and reading and reading, hoping he would find a way to blame his bogue statistics in Islamofascism, and — nothing. What the hell do I read that blog for, anyway? If I wanted just plain old boring economic commentary that was a ton of bullshit but without rag-bashing, I’d stick with Paul Craig Roberts.
Speaking of batshit kill-the-mozlums insanity, Pam decided to one-up Debbie Anschlussel with a considered essay on concentration camps for the üntermenschen be they Americans of Japanese descent or bloodthirsty Mohametan killers.
I quote:
“All this hand wringing about intermenny [sic] camps. A country does what it has to do to survive when it is under existential threat. The Japanese wanted to take out America, America took no chances. The left cannot bear the thought of America defending herself. Every savage in the world? No apology necessary.”
She’s just asking for it. I’ll see how long it takes for her to 1) get, and then 2) delete, my comment on “International Japanesery.”
Hi, Mikey,
That was my impression, precisely. My friends in Italy are young middle-class types, and some of them have seen the “value” of their salaries plummet since conversion, while their rents skyrocketed. Hence, they’re moving in with their parents in their 30s (granted, that’s not unusual in Italy anyway).
But they cannot afford goods and services on their salaries anymore.
That’s the point I wanted to make–though I hate disagreeing with Seb.
As a Euro-dhimmi blogger, I use the “Gates of Vienna test” as a yardstick of the intellectual capacity of any blogger I read.
If their blogroll includes Gates of Vienna, I read their posts with the same wearied indulgence I would feel whilst watching a brain-damaged puppy barking at a rock.
Some might call this prejudice, but they’ve never read Baron Bodissey’s posts.
Ask any Italian what he thinks of the economy at the moment and if you’re lucky he’ll just shout at you for a few hours
Maybe so, but is there anything you can ask an Italian that _won’t _ result in hours of shouting?
My friends in Italy are young middle-class types, and some of them have seen the “value� of their salaries plummet since conversion, while their rents skyrocketed.
Be fair… Italy has spent 5 years with a corrupt, incompetent rightwing Prime Minister who retained power only by keeping the media on his side, and throwing handfuls of money to all his mates. Hardly surprising if the Italian economy is in the toilet right now.
RZ: Polythene Pam has a post in favor of “intermenny” (dear god she’s vile) camps? Nuh-uh. You’re making shit up. I’d check it out but I can’t sleep at night if I click on her site.
“A country does what it has to do to survive when it is under existential threat”? Oh. You mean, sort of like Nazi Germany, 1940s-ish? Which can actually be compared to Nazis, since they were in fact Nazis? Like with the Jews and everything, which Pam is actually her own self, I’m given to understand?
And WTF is an “existential threat”, anyway? Is that like if Mersault had cried at his mother’s funeral after all? Cuz then everyone would be sad and shit? Okay, now I’m babbling.
Dr. Bimler–I don’t know very much about the situation, other than what I was told by 5 or 6 Italian friends that I’ve known for many years. As familiar as I am with Italy, a whole hell of a lot of it remains beyond my understanding. Also, my friends are–quote–“communists”–which I take with a lump of salt…so, they may be angrier than the wealthy Italians, none of whom I know.
So, I guess I could say that the Italian left is especially pissed-off.
And WTF is an “existential threat�, anyway?
Its when Nietzsche shows up at your door with a hammer, brandishing his giant mustache and muttering ominously about what nice idols you have and how it would be a shame if something were to happen to them.
Hey, what ever happened to Pete M.?
Re Pammy, her vlogs have been banned from YouTube.
If that still is any indication, she appears to be morphing into Divine.
MzNicky:
Yep, the same woman who fancies it a rhetorical victory for the Republican Paarty when she litters her own website (and “vee-logs”) with pictures of piled corpses at Auschwitz is accusing the Council of American-Islamic Relations of “Exploit[ing] WWII Internment Camps.”
Hey, what ever happened to Pete M.?
Pistol Pete? Oddly enough, he died in 1988 while playing basketball with none other than James Dobson. Coincidence? You be the judge…
mikey
And saying that bringing them back would be a good thing.
Intermenny? She has a cute name for internment camps?
Ahhh, kingubu, the philosophy geek in me wants to spend a couple hundred words going into how yer joke is funny cause it’s trooooooooooooooo, but I’d just bore everyone. I have to geek just a little, tho.
It drives me nuts how few of the self-described Nietzsche experts on the right haven’t read anything written about Nietzsche since the 50s, which is to say before Bataille then Deleuze then Nehamas cleared the way for the work of the last 20 years.
Nietzsche was a lot more like George Carlin than Pat Buchanan.
N he probably didn’t have syphilis. Here is a pdf (couldn’t find it as html) of an article from The Journal of Medical Biography in 2003 making the case Ole mustache face more likely had what amounts to a very slow growing eye tumor.
Also drives me nuts when realize I forgot yet again to proofread.
Scratch the “n’t” from “haven’t” in my attempt at a smartypants gripe.
serves me right, I s’pose.
“All this hand wringing about intermenny [sic] camps. A country does what it has to do to survive when it is under existential threat. The Japanese wanted to take out America, America took no chances. The left cannot bear the thought of America defending herself. Every savage in the world? No apology necessary.�
The solution here is obvious and simple. Muslims hate Jews, right? So, we round up the Jews. Cram them all into obsolete freighters, and ship them out to the Muslims for execution.
Boom. No more existential threat. Everyone wins. Well, except the Jews. But we have to do what we have to do to ensure our national survival. Pam should be first in line to volunteer for packing.
*when I realize.
This could go on all night.
I miss you, preview button.
Do not seek perfection, glasshoppah. Post stream-of-conscience and let the consonants fall where they may.
Alms?
Alms?
mikey
I took a cruise to Paris, then a train to Vienna.
The city smelled like ass, so I returned home to Savannah.
See, that’s interesting. I once had a girlfriend who’s ass smelled like the city….
mikey
All this hand wringing about intermenny [sic] camps
She’s really trying to say ‘interment’. As in burial. She doesn’t see why that’s a problem: after all, if you bury ’em after you killz ’em, what’s to complain about?
QUOTE Iraqis, for all our determination and courage, cannot succeed alone. UNQUOTE Good points. I encourage Fred Kagan, Robert Kagan, Bill Kristol, and all the other chickenhawks and College Republicans to hustle their cowardly behinds off to Iraq to fight for Hoshy. As for everyone else, it is time to come home.
By ifthethunderdontgetya | May 4, 2007 11:12:17 PM | Request Removal
Brought to you by teh Preview Button.
An existential threat is a threat to the very existence of your nation. You know, like the kind the USSR posed, and al-Qaeda doesn’t.
…I read their posts with the same wearied indulgence I would feel whilst watching a brain-damaged puppy barking at a rock.
I am SO stealing this gem…
The “existential threat” is, as Mikey pointed out, whatever perceived threat may be used by a government to attack another country or round up large numbers of people.
For example, when Imperial Japan faced resistance to their colonization of Manchuria, they responded with a full-scale military invasion and annexation. Since those uppity Chinese represented a threat to their existence as a superior race. Hey, they did what they thought they had to do…
Later, when faced with an oil embargo by the US in 1941, they saw it as a threat to their existence, since their military/industrial complex was entirely dependent on imported oil, and they did what they thought they had to do…
Oh wait, that wasn’t really the point she wanted to make, was it?
Shorter Pam “An existential threat is my rason d’etre”
(help with my french please)
raison d’être
As opposed to Maison d’être, which was the title of Jean-Paul Sartre’s house.
Poisson d’etre
Reason for fish?
Fish for being?
Later, when faced with an oil embargo by the US in 1941, they saw it as a threat to their existence, since their military/industrial complex was entirely dependent on imported oil, and they did what they thought they had to do…
That is pretty much exactly the history taught to Japanese schoolkids at the Yushukan, the Imperial War Museum in Tokyo. They also show propaganda movies of the China War uncommented on, as if they were documentaries.
I actually lived in a sealed underwater structure. It was called Caisson d’Être.
As far as I can make out, this Archonix is that breed of Englishman that we call the ‘Middle-Englander’. This is very much like your Middle-American, except that they are probably better-travelled.
Middle-Englanders like to think of themselves as a silent majority. The archetypal newspaper for them is the Daily Mail. The Mail is home to a shrill, knee-jerk form of establishment conservatism that lives in fear of immigrants and foreigners in general. (Famously, the Mail was a big fan of the fascist Moseley; an echo that remains.) But there is an odd doublethink at play here. For the Mail reader, Europe is a playground to plunder for luxuries and buy a second home. However, the Europeans that populate the continent are fundamentally untrustworthy. They are tolerable so long as they stay ‘over there’ and do not come ‘over here’.
For the Middle-Englander the EU is a terrible experiment that has destroyed our way of life and countryside through regulation and sapped our bodily fluids. As with anything, there are fragments of truth in this. I’m an ardent European but will admit to there being swings to the roundabouts. The administration in Brussels is verifiably a corrupt organization and in dire need of reform. Middle-Englanders will cherry pick the worst excesses as evidence for their cause.
However, the Middle-Englanders tend to forget one of the primary reasons we joined in the experiment. It was to keep the major European powers from each others’ throats by deeper economic and political integration; something it has demonstrably been successful at doing. The Middle-Englanders, for whom history ended in 1945 at the moment of our nation’s greatest military triumph, would happily throw out the baby with the bathwater.
There’s nothing wrong with throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I mean, what else are you supposed to do? You can try telling the police “I never saw that baby before!” Or “I have no idea how that baby got into my bath!” Or “It was just a terrible accident!” But they can be so hard to convince.
Aber mein lieber herr Doktor, that one made me snigger inappropriately.
There is, it’s worth noting, a general feeling in large parts of the eurozone that businesses have exploited the change of currency to sneak in a significant bump in prices. And there’s been widespread dissatisfaction with the inflation-focused policies of the ECB.
On the whole, though, I think most European economies (both EU and non-EU) have generally been doing rather well the past few years, with a fluke here and there.
Herr Doktor Bimler, you be fair, too! Silvio Berlusconi owns (or owned) almost all media in Italy during his terms as prime Minister. Aside from his Bush-like economic policies, his decision to support our beloved Commander in Chimp on his little Iraq adventure cost him the job–and not by much! It’s amazing how many Italians are hard-right morons… just like here in America. ‘Course, they did invent fascism. I’m still amused that Gary Ruppert had predicted that Berlusconi was a slam dunk for re-election. A slam dunk!!11! Hee hee.
Well, literally, that;s something like, “Fish to be,” or, “Fish be.” More correctly translated, it’s something like, “There are fish.”
French grammar and conjugation are odd.
(a) Throw the bathwater out sans baby.
(b) Throw the baby out sans bathwater.
(c) Drink the bathwater.
Especially when its not your baby.
poison d’etre: selfishness and cruelty
poison pour etre. asparagus
The Daily Mail, Fox News in print form.
The Daily Mail, Fox News in print form.
Except that the Daily Mail would regard Fox News Channel as a band of dangerous pinkoes.
Ireland, historically the most dirt poor country in Western Europe, is exploding! People from Eastern Europe are actually going to Ireland to find jobs. Imagine that!. It’s my (admittedly shaky, I’m no economist) understanding that Ireland’s joining the EU is to thank for this.
It’s my (admittedly shaky, I’m no economist) understanding that Ireland’s joining the EU is to thank for this.
Almost all of Europe has signed on to the Bologna accords, which attempt to harmonize educational credentials throughout the region. EU or no EU this is an enormous step towards unification in Europe, the countries of which have traditionally provided a baffling array of hard-to-understand educational programs. The difference in mobility is already profound.
US undergrads: take your three-year degree in Europe and still get grad admission in the US! (Not universal, but worth checking out: why do a four-year degree padded with gen-ed requirements?)
eff said,
May 5, 2007 at 1:54
Dr. Bimler–I don’t know very much about the situation, other than what I was told by 5 or 6 Italian friends that I’ve known for many years. As familiar as I am with Italy, a whole hell of a lot of it remains beyond my understanding. Also, my friends are–quote–�communists�–which I take with a lump of salt…
I used to know an Italian communist journalist who was always ranting about American imperialism and philistinism. One day we decided to go out for dinner and my husband suggested Mexican food (we live in LA) … to which our commie friend replied, “I don’t eat that crap — that’s poor people’s food.” Gave me a lifetime distrust of extremist politics, right or left.
sorry, that was “Jeff,” not “eff”!!
Silvio Berlusconi owns (or owned) almost all media in Italy during his terms as prime Minister. Aside from his Bush-like economic policies, his decision to support our beloved Commander in Chimp on his little Iraq adventure cost him the job–and not by much! It’s amazing how many Italians are hard-right morons…
I do suspect that that the number of Italians supporting Berlusconi was somehow — how shall we say — exaggerated during the last Italian election. There was something unexpectedly sincere about Berlusconi’s outrage, when he realised that he didn’t have enough votes to hang onto power and preserve his immunity from prosecution. It was the reaction of a man who had paid large sums of cash to have the election rigged, but didn’t rig it quite far enough. He didn’t get his money’s worth, and he was seething about it… he practically staged a coup, that whole soap opera of refusing to accept the election results or relinquish his powers.
Righteous Bubba said:
Almost all of Europe has signed on to the Bologna accords,…
Triggering a nightmare of bureaucracy in all of the signatory countries. Sorry, I know I’m just (slightly drunk and) whining, and Bologna does have many positive effects, but to those of us involved in the governing bodies of European universites, its main consequence was a ton of extra paperwork.
Almost all of Europe has signed on to the Bologna accords,…
Triggering a nightmare of bureaucracy in all of the signatory countries.
I agree with this view too. But European learning was and is a nightmare for anyone outside Europe to comprehend, let alone within it. It’s interesting to see how countries with a relatively recent US influence on higher learning (Philippines, Japan, Korea) manage to produce readable and useful documents and have a relatively clear way of doing things, while Europeans have to be wrestled into the ground before you can get them to, you know, provide information that’s meaningful even within their own countries.
Really, the colonial powers are the absolute shits at organizing anything, which makes Bologna or a greater Europe seem…I guess miraculous is too positive a word, so maybe unbelievable is the way to go.
Following a few drinks, one link takes us to another which eventually leads to Gates of Vienna and this:
Crikey! Does I smell an Eau de Joyce?
Tehanu, you’re lucky you didn’t meet a boorish elitist liberal at the same time or you might have ended up a yoostabee.
i thought the reason most europeans are suffering is because the convergence criteria their governments signed up to is basically hard neoliberalism, slashing spending, slashing jobs, creating flexible labour markets, forcing down wages, enforcing fiscal discipline, etc. etc. in short all the shit wingnuts tend to love, unless you can use the consequences as a stick to beat eurabia with. “our high unemployment, and sluggish economy is proof of our individualism and self-reliance, their high unemployment and sluggish economy is proof of how totally gay they are”
Dear Sadly No,
Funny thing about the Italians eh, living under a conservative party Berli PM for years: and who gets the blame for rising rents? Why it’s the socialist EU !
What ever will these genius types think of next? Blame the loss of Iraq on Nancy Pelosi! Fucking Socialist bitch.
Hang on I’m on a roll here…Conservatives run France for the last 12 years–who’s to blame for the riots? Why it’s the coddling liberal welfare state. Fucking dirty scum back hippy socialists!
It works for any case. Excellent.
faithfully,
Rt Hon McAdder Esq KBE
Dear Sadly No,
hmmmm… let me see. 12 years of the GOP and LA burns to the ground, Tip O’Neill’s to blame! Dirty Socialist rat fucker!
New Orleans flooded thousands killed, the federal socailist entity FEMA is to blame. Although it’s functioned before…
And don’t get me started there on 9/11–long time conservative Mayor, long time conservative Governor and conservative President. Largest air defence budget in the world.
Fucking Socialist lesbian hippy Clenis did it!
Faithfully,
Rt Hon McAdder Esq KBE
Dear Sadly No,
EU sigantory nations agree to Freetrade, harmonized monetary policy, harmonized social spending levels, neoliberal measures to curb welfare spending..you get the picture.
Faithfully,
Rt Hon McAdder Esq KBE
Um, teh End Timesâ„¢ are here?