<< MAN OF 1,000 BARS ~ MAIN ~ CORBY LATEST >>
PALESTINE PART OF EUROPE
France is voting today on the EU constitution (according to the New York Times, the main issues are all to do with the Palestinian Authority). The whole EU deal is a ripoff, claims a new report:
Britain is losing 200 million pounds (290 billion euros, 365 billion dollars) a year due to its membership in the European Union, according to a detailed cost analysis to be published next month.
“The cost of the EU to Britain is equivalent to the UK economy remaining stagnant for eight years,” said co-author Philip Booth of the conservative Institute of Economic Affairs, quoted in The Business, a Sunday newspaper.
Direct contributions to the EU budget, higher food prices due to the Common Agricultural Policy, higher costs for manufactured goods, lack of competition in services, and red tape are imposing high costs on Britain, the report says.
But consider all the benefits!
Indeed, the benefits:
Sir Humphrey: “Minister, Britain has had the same foreign policy objective for at least the last 500 years: to create a disunited Europe. In that cause we have fought with the Dutch against the Spanish, with the Germans against the French, with the French and Italians against the Germans, and with the French against the Germans and Italians. Divide and rule, you see. Why should we change now when it’s worked so well?”
Jim Hacker: “That’s all ancient history, surely.”
Sir Humphrey: “Yes, and current policy. We had to break the whole thing (the EEC) up, so we had to get inside. We tried to break it up from the outside, but that wouldn’t work. Now that we’re inside we can make a complete pig’s breakfast of the whole thing: set the Germans against the French, the French against the Italians, the Italians against the Dutch. The Foreign Office is terribly pleased, it’s just like old times.”Posted by Aging Gamer on 2005 05 29 at 08:07 AM • permalinkyes i just picked up the same thing; the original AFP story is very slack, as 200 million pounds is only about 4 pounds per Pom per year (its the sort of conversion mistake that the Age makes about once a week; I have given up writing letters to them pointing out their errors).
290 billion euro is serious money and , although i would accept that they lose a lot each year, I would not think that it would be 290 billion euro; we will have to wait for the correction, if it ever comesPosted by arnienelly on 2005 05 29 at 08:34 AM • permalinkI don’t know how they measure compliance costs - it could well be exaggerated - but the EU does pump out a lot of regulations. However, it would be only fair (and an extremely eye-opening exercise) to estimate the drag on all our economies of all the cr#p regulations businesses get burdened with (depending how you define cr#p).
But if 200 Billion Pounds a Year is an accurate figure, that’s insane money - think about Labor’s $100 Billion debt, 3+ times a year, every year.
The EU could be great if they could somehow get away from their collectivist-statist mentality. Historically, governments have not done a very good job, long term, running economies.
If the French voters bitch-slap the proposed constitution, good for them. It deserves to go back to the drawing board.
Posted by Mystery Meat on 2005 05 29 at 11:39 AM • permalinkKipwatson — Check out Victim: Caught in the Environmental Web for a look at some of the hidden costs of the bureaucrats’ moral superiority…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 05 29 at 12:32 PM • permalinkObviously some regulation of society is worthwhile - we’re not anarchists after all - but in these days of ‘impact statements’, let’s all be informed of the economic impact of our collective zeal for regulation.
Easy examples is the high social cost of accident liability laws on everyday community and small business activities, and the effect on house prices of layers of environmental and zoning regulations. The impact on my morning shower of silly water regulations is another one that afflicts me every day.
If any new regulation had to be justified in terms of total cost efficiency (including hidden costs) and net public benefit, I doubt that very many would make it. And impose a renewal period, so we can assess them periodically to see if they are performing.
That book looks very interesting by the way. Sounds like the USA is a little ahead of Australia on the road to madness…
There was a great article in the Weekend Australian on this:
My favourite quotes:
Well, bring it on. What France needs, if I may be so impolite to suggest after living in the country for four months, is a healthy shock to its vanity. It is in desperate need of a clearing out of the moribund political elite symbolised by the unprincipled, patently populist Jacques Chirac and an invasion of Polish plumbers, there being no one to fix your toilet on one of the country’s 40-plus paid days of holiday (said to be the highest in the world) after the President said non to immature eastern Europeans being allowed in to perform badly needed services at a less than exorbitant cost.
...
Yes, the French social model is dead, an absolute stinker that has delivered double-digit unemployment for decades and created a growing sector of the population that is keen on holidays. (A friend recently had to use toilets at the bars and cafes of Paris for six days while the only French plumber his landlady would approve took the pont or bridge day linking two public holidays and a weekend.)This was never the dream of the revolutionaries of 1789 who toppled the ancien regime for cherished ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity, not the right to take Pentecost Monday as a holiday
Posted by Art Vandelay on 2005 05 29 at 09:17 PM • permalinkWHENEVER The Age has a story involving some sort of maths input by reporters or subs, you can guarantee they stuff it up. As for this 200m pds = 290b Euro; 365b USD,lay it against UK GDP of $1.782 trillion (2004 est.) in purchasing power parity (source: CIA World Factbook) . That alleged subsidy represents 20.5% of GDP. A figure so large is ridiculous and would long ago have destroyed the UK as an economic power.
tonythomas one-time Age economics writer, CanberraRecent estimates of the compliance costs of Australian regulation are as high as 8 per cent of GDP.
Given the EU is far more regulated than Australia, the UK pay massive subsidies to the EU and factoring in the much higher prices they pay for food and services, 20 per cent isn’t unreasonable.
ArtVandelay, Regulatory Economist, Canberra
Posted by Art Vandelay on 2005 05 30 at 02:33 AM • permalinkMeanwhile, the frogs have voted against the EU consitution.
Back to the drawing board, belgian functionnaires!
Would the UK’s economy be 20% bigger than it is if it hadn’t joined the EU? Fersure. If the plethora of daft regulation under which it suffers had never been enacted, the figure would more likely be around 50%, i.e on a par with the US, or better, in per capita terms.
Posted by David Gillies on 2005 05 31 at 01:33 AM • permalink
Page 1 of 1 pages
Members:
Login | Register
| Member List
Yes! No longer having to suffer with Cumberland sausages, the Pom’s now have the ‘Euro Sausage’, spicy, with a hint of garlic, yet large enough to satisfy the average German. Mind you though, the French were all for the idea of the EU when they thought they could control it, and thus Europe. For some reason they have gone cold on the idea.