Italy can or will cause the downfall of the EU - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#14697190
Italy will be the next step towards the complete destruction of the European Union.

This year Italy will have a referendum concerning changes to their political system. Major changes.

If this referendum fails then Rezni the Prime Minister of Italy will resign. This will trigger elections and the 5 Star Movement led by Grillo will likely win.

If the 5 Star Movement wins they have DEFINITELY promised an referendum on whether Italy should abandon the Euro as a currency.

Italy has had 1% economic growth since adopting the Euro in 1999.

It is very possible at this point but perhaps not likely that Italy will vote to abandon the Euro and thus cause the collapse of the Eurozone and the European Union with it.

This will cause grievous damage to Liberal Capitalism and I hope the whole rotten global system falls with it.
#14697195
My amateur analysis is that it makes sense for northern Italy to be in the Euro, but southern Italy has certain potential geographic advantages that would be diminished by using the same currency as further away northern countries. This is probably divisive for the country.
#14697244
I think the bottom will blow out of the economy long before they get to the referendum. That'll very much focus minds. They do know which side their bread is buttered on and won't risk a total melt-down. Anyways, Italians are more able to live with political instability than most.

After only two days, Brexit already had a sobering effect in Spain. The center-right PP was able to gain seats and thus remain by far strongest force in the country, and that, despite years of so-called austerity and a series of corruption scandals involving the PP. Even if the disunited left were to unite, they wouldn't have a majority.

Podemos on the other hand, did far worse than expected even though they teemed up with various other groups.

Hong Wu wrote:My amateur analysis is that it makes sense for northern Italy to be in the Euro, but southern Italy has certain potential geographic advantages that would be diminished by using the same currency as further away northern countries. This is probably divisive for the country.


That's a very good point, a number of countries including Italy and France risk breakup in the case of an EU collapse. The Italians may be a little chaotic, but they are not like the reckless upper-class toffs in the UK who gamble away their country, even when the latter like to style themselves as Silvio Boris'coni.
#14697246
not like the reckless upper-class toffs in the UK who gamble away their country,


This is the thing though. Th toffs of the UK are usually very pragmatic and risk averse to things like this. We are not a 'revolutionary' country at all. It is all very un-british in that sense.

I wonder what the referendum result would be in other countries if they had them. I think it is quite close in a few places and would probably depend on the campaign and personalities. Certainly france would be a close run thing for sure.
#14697250
This is the thing though. Th toffs of the UK are usually very pragmatic and risk averse to things like this. We are not a 'revolutionary' country at all. It is all very un-british in that sense.

The Brexit catastrophe occurred not because the toffs - such as David Cameron or Boris Johnson - were reckless, but because they were complacent. In the months leading up to the referendum, journalists repeatedly asked Cameron what his plans were if Brexit won the referendum. Cameron refused to even consider the possibility that this could occur. He had apparently convinced himself that Brexit was impossible. Even Boris Johnson doesn't seem to have believed that Brexit would win, despite campaigning for precisely that result, and didn't even want it to win. Hence his rather sheepish look in the immediate aftermath of the referendum result. Of course, the end result of complacency is indistinguishable from the end result of recklessness, but the psychological and cultural origin is different.
#14697253
To be fair, it was a fair bet. He never thought that his pal boris would back stab him or merkel would invite in millions of muslims.

Without just one of these things, he probably would have won.

Granted, but it would have been a narrow victory. In fact, the referendum was hanging on a knife-edge, and had been even before Boris' opportunistic betrayal and Mama Merkel's 'humanitarian' intervention, yet Cameron doesn't seem to have understood this. He even told Juncker that Remain would win "by 70% to 30%", to which Juncker replied that not even in Luxembourg would Remain win by that sort of margin. No, Cameron was complacent; the conclusion is inescapable.
#14697254
layman wrote:This is the thing though. Th toffs of the UK are usually very pragmatic and risk averse to things like this. We are not a 'revolutionary' country at all. It is all very un-british in that sense.


Maybe it's time to give up a few preconceptions about your country?

The current upheaval has been brewing for a very long time:

Brexit: the disaster decades in the making

I have said time and again in this forum that the UK has always been a very divided and very polarized country. And instead of healing the rift to create a social consensus as in Germany, both sides have done their dam best to acerbate the split.

Here's a little episode to illustrate what I mean. When I took a job in a London engineering firm as a young man in the 70s, we had a discussion about a technical issue in which the boss joined on the morning of the first day. When we went to lunch that same day, a colleague leaned over to me to tell me in a quite voice "we all thought, you were very brave." I had no clue what he meant. It turned out they were surprised that I told the boss my mind about that technical issue. I considered myself a rather timid young man who wouldn't take an audacious attitude. It would never have occurred to me that my little intervention could have been interpreted in that way. You would never have encountered that sort of class thinking between labor and management in a German company, even at the time. That gap has never been healed and that is why British manufacturing has gone down the drain. It's crazy to think that British workers do better under Chinese or Japanese management than under the management of your own upper classes.

I wonder what the referendum result would be in other countries if they had them. I think it is quite close in a few places and would probably depend on the campaign and personalities. Certainly france would be a close run thing for sure.


That is besides the point. The point is that Cameron used the referendum for party-political reasons. It is he who put the country at risk without need. To put the interest of the party above the interest of the country ought to be treated as high treason.

No matter what the populists like to tell you, referendums don't mean more democracy. On the contrary, they are the preferred means of the populists to subvert representative democracy. Why else would Hitler have used referendums as tool for grabbing power?
#14697257
Granted, but it would have been a narrow victory. In fact, the referendum was hanging on a knife-edge, and had been even before Boris' opportunistic betrayal and Mama Merkel's 'humanitarian' intervention, yet Cameron doesn't seem to understood this. He even told Juncker that Remain would win "by 70% to 30%", to which Juncker replied that not even in Luxembourg would Remain win by that sort of margin. No, Cameron was complacent; the conclusion is inescapable.


Yeah his 70-30 quip was quite amazing actually. Even back then before the migrant flood.

Yes, yes it was complacent but I can see why he thought it was a fair bet. He did after all have the rational on his side. Literally everyone was on his side apart from 25% of the tory party, trump, putin and a bunch fascists and communists.

What he underestimated though wasnt a british thing like you and atlantis seem to feel. I think it was the new more global phenomenon - distrust of experts and elites. Its kind of a 'facebook revolution' like the arab spring or the orange revolution in Ukraine. More like that. Rebelling against authority without anything to actually replace it.

Here's a little episode to illustrate what I mean. When I took a job in a London engineering firm as a young man in the 70s, we had a discussion about a technical issue in which the boss joined on the morning of the first day. When we went to lunch that same day, a colleague leaned over to me to tell me in a quite voice "we all thought, you were very brave." I had no clue what he meant. It turned out they were surprised that I told the boss my mind about that technical issue. I considered myself a rather timid young man who wouldn't take an audacious attitude. It would never have occurred to me that my little intervention could have been interpreted in that way. You would never have encountered that sort of class thinking between labor and management in a German company, even at the time. That gap has never been healed and that is why British manufacturing has gone down the drain. It's crazy to think that British workers do better under Chinese or Japanese management than under the management of your own upper classes.


This is pretty ridiculous and speaks more about your preconceptions actually.

The idea that we are all little serfs who wont speak out mind in meetings? If it was like that then there is no way business would flourish like it was done.
Last edited by layman on 30 Jun 2016 11:54, edited 1 time in total.
#14697258
Potemkin wrote:Of course, the end result of complacency is indistinguishable from the end result of recklessness, but the psychological and cultural origin is different.


What's the point of splitting linguistic hairs about the presumed state of mind of the man, which he himself probably isn't quite clear about?

The objective fact amounts to recklessness.

Responsible politicians will not take such risks simply to gain the next elections.
#14697262
Responsible politicians will not take such risks simply to gain the next elections.

Indeed. And what is the point of winning power, if it simply results in a colossal fuck-up for the entire nation? Cameron won the election; but he's probably wishing right now that he'd actually lost it instead. :lol:
#14697266
Potemkin wrote:Indeed. And what is the point of winning power, if it simply results in a colossal fuck-up for the entire nation? Cameron won the election; but he's probably wishing right now that he'd actually lost it instead. :lol:


When center politicians resort to anti immigration rhetoric in order to keep the fascists at bay, they open the way for racist thinking in the middle of society, which will benefit the right-wing racists. Both the Austrians and Slovaks have made that experience.

You cannot fight racism by making xenophobic thinking acceptable in the center.

You have to fight racism and fascism head-on. If politicians don't have the guts to do that, they ought to quit. Appeasement is the wrong way.
#14697284
It's crazy to think that British workers do better under Chinese or Japanese management than under the management of your own upper classes.


How's that crazy? :?:

The British upper class are the scum of the earth of course no one wants to work for them.
#14697291
How's that crazy? :?:

The British upper class are the scum of the earth of course no one wants to work for them.

^ This. I have come into contact with the British upper-middle classes quite extensively in the course of my education, and in my experience the overwhelming majority of them are irredeemable scumbags, utter bags of festering shit. The sooner we ship them all off to a Gulag, the better.
#14697292
Potemkin wrote:Granted, but it would have been a narrow victory. In fact, the referendum was hanging on a knife-edge, and had been even before Boris' opportunistic betrayal and Mama Merkel's 'humanitarian' intervention, yet Cameron doesn't seem to have understood this. He even told Juncker that Remain would win "by 70% to 30%", to which Juncker replied that not even in Luxembourg would Remain win by that sort of margin. No, Cameron was complacent; the conclusion is inescapable.

A big chunk of his own party was pro-Brexit too, so he didn't want to campaign against it so much. He thought he was doing enough for Remain to keep Britain in the EU, while he still can remain party leader and Prime Minister. He miscalculated and then lost.
#14697379
Its a joy to see liberals and leftist flip over this referendum. Even if the establishment will take away the voice of the people and annul the results of this referendum, it was worth it just to see everyone throw a flip. I wonder how these people will feel when actual change will happen. As what is happening now is just the beginning of this new wave of change that I see appearing
#14698669
I dont think the Euro will collapse if Italy leaves it.

Personally I hope Italy leaves. In the short run, there will be a bit of a price to pay, but in the long run, this bodes very well for Italys economy.

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