h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Perhaps I'm being a bit thick here - but why is everyone in such a two and eight about the single currency?
What has this got to do with sovereignty anyway - three countries in west Africa share a currency (the CFA) and they are all independent....and does anyone but Mr. Hague think joining NAFTA instead is a good idea?

Like you I think theres a load of bull being talked about the single currency.
Personally I don't care what I'm paid in, as long as theres enough of it

Not being European it really doesn't bother me. Besides there are several countries that use the US dollar as their official currency and it doesn't affect the US at all.

Its very complicated. It doesn't just involve using different pieces of metal and paper its economics and politics too. If we join then we lose a lot of control of fiscal/monetary policy...e.g. interest rates. Our economy is very different to other countries in Europe and we need to get the economies more in sync ('scuse bad grammer).

On the flip side - with the pound being so strong we are a bad prospect for overseas investers so maybe a weak currency like the euro might be beneficial in that respect. Especially to the struggling manufacturing industry.

Big issue, lots to it....errrrrmmmmm yeah.

Stay lucky.

Is Hague really talking about joining NAFTA? I wouldn't put it past him. I always said the guy was an idiot. Better to throw our lot in with Europe, in my opinion, than disappear forever under the wing of the Americans - those guys'll eat us for breakfast. At least Europe has a parliament, some semblance of a democratic structure. As far as I'm aware, NAFTA is just a mutual interest club for big fat cigar-chomping American businessmen.

(Creative use of stereotypical imagery there. Apologies to American readers... )

hey no problem. We see NAFTA is just a mutual interest club for big fat cigar-chomping American businessmen too.

I'm not sure whether it heartens me to hear that or whether maybe I should now be even more disturbed than I was before...

I see nothing wrong with it whatsoever indeed my university disertation was on the Single Currency. If anything it should make Europe less prone to inflationary pressures. More able to compete especially against the dollar. A stronger market place for our goods and services. Hague and his Tory cohorts have slowed down our progress while they still had power and now they are moaning about Tony making any progress for the good of the nation, we no longer rule the wolrd wake up William.

there's probably very little wrong with the euro - it's just a unit of currency .... the problem lies with the politicians and economists who administer it!!

and just like decimalisation (UK) in 1971, everything gets "rounded up" and we get "ripped off"

I have no real clue as to the deeper issues of the Euro (a six-page magazine article is all I have to educate myself), but my idea is that it would be a Good Thing. If anything, it would save all that faffing around with exchange rates and stuff.

There are sensible arguments both for and against the single currency. It's a shame that the press and politicians (of all colours) seem to latch onto the sensationalist arguments for the quick soundbite or headline.

Anyway I've still got to be persuaded that joining as A GOOD THING for me.

I think if you're going to take a sceptical view of the single currency you need to convince us that there is a viable alternative to closer links with our European partners. According to what people were saying above, Hague is proposing closer links with America, via the NAFTA system. That would seem absolutely to be a non-starter, unless we want to relegate Britain once and for all to the status of a second world country, forever in thrall to the vagaries of American commerce.

The only other option that I can see would be to go it alone. I would say that a global marketplace really has no room for a relatively small country like Britain trying to make its way as an independent trader, and that nobody would seriously suggest this is an option. Therefore, what is left but to settle differences with our European neighbours and throw our lot in with the single currency?

Doubtless, this will involve making some sacrifices, for example ceding a certain amount of political authority to the European centre. But even this is not necessarily such a Dreadful Thing, actually. Look, for example, at the way that British law now has to contend with the European Court of Human Rights when it is making decisions about who is and who isn't an enemy of the state. We have no court of human rights in this country - the European influence is actually filling a space that has long been in evidence in British law. I think the European Union is actually *more* democratic in many respects than our own system. Maybe that is why so many people in Britain actually dislike it so much - I think there is, even today, still a lingering distaste in our country for progressive democracy...

And you should be trying to tell me why closer european integration is such a good thing. A free trade area in goods and services is a great idea but everyone has to play by the rules and not everyone does.

I wouldn't advocate going it alone, we're to small a country and the manufaturing base we have isn't really there any more.
Other european countries have decided not to go for the single european currency (sweeden and denmark). There are countries who aren't members of the EU who seem to be able to negotiate well enough for themselves (Norway). Perhaps we should be talking with these other countries and asking them how they do it and perhaps form (or re-form) another trading club.

As for a more democratic process, I have no say in those people who are chosen to run the commission (the commisioners). The reason that there is no court of human rights in this country is that there has been no statutes saying this is what you can and can't do. In some ways this is both a good and a bad thing, but it still doesn't address the issue of persuading me that the single european currency is a good thing.

>'everyone has to play by the rules and not everyone does.'

Yes, of course, but that is where an elected Parliament comes in. There is such a thing as a European Parliament, which includes representatives from Britain, and any citizen in this country has a right to decide who is going to represent us in it. (The fact that only about 30% of people actually bother to do so says more about our apathy than it does about the state of democracy in the EU.)

This compares unfavourably with a trading block such as NAFTA (I bring this example up again because no one here has yet provided any other alternatives), in which we would basically have no say whatsoever about who makes the decisions and what kind of decisions they make - as I said above, NAFTA is not much more than a businessmens' club.

As for the Scandinavian countries - I don't really know about them, although I gather that Norway is heavily reliant on its oil supplies - which obviously will not last forever - and that Sweden has recently been in a period of economic decline. Basically, though, as you seem to agree, I can't really see how any individual country can expect to be any kind of significant player in a global economy if they go it alone.

The biggest problem with the european parliment is that it has no real teeth. The rules and regulations are not set by the parliment, they're set by the commision. If the parliment had more authority and was able to do things then I'd agree with you.

Before the UK joined the EEC (as it was then known) it was one of the founder members of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) along with Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Austria, Switzerland and Portugal. Of these countries only Switzerland and Norway are not members of the EU.
When the referendum in Norway went against joining the EU they negotiated a free trade treaty with the EU.

Lorks, all this reading and comp-licated stuff. Now I am very happy I do not know anything about this currency. I shall continue doing this.

Some of the 'anti' noise in the British press lately has been focussing on how the single currency is supposedly causing trouble for the Irish economy now that their inflation rate is running high and they can't wield the hammer of interest rates as a weapon to knock inflation down. I don't know whether this is a real problem or not. Have any of our Irish or economist contingent a view on the true importance to a nation's economy of losing some control over interest rates?

Interest rates are the main tool used by a government to control inflation.

Stay lucky............

w.r.t. The Irish economy - it is possibly in a period of hyperinflation...but this is largely a readjustment because it was so long stagnating and is now catching up on where it should be.

The brutal headlines, such as the fact that house prices have doubled in 5 years and the fiscal surplus last year was about IR£1000 per capita are scaring a few economists but the rest of us are more interested in the 100% employment (perhaps more, as lots of people seem to do 2 jobs) and the lowest ever interest rates.

Also - if the self-regulatory effect of "the marketplace" is so universal why should the government seek to control interest rates anyhow?

Nothing wrong that I can think of, but it should be 240 volts don't you think. Why do the British always have to change. Come to Britain and drive on the right side of your brain.