An awakening perhaps. The 2014 May MEP elections increased the anti(ish) EU proportion of the new 750 (and never bigger) + 1 (Schickelschulz) EUParl from about 4% to 30 - 35%.  Landslide I said , but for any parliamentary system a massive change. Unfortunately not a big enough democratic tremor to change very much, especially with Schickelschulz controlling 'political groups' and the amendment of legislation.  Nevertheless, the new opposition were able to show their supporters what a controlled utterly by the executive (Commissionaires) 'rubber-stamp' outfit they had elected their opposition representatives to. This was followed: I saw and heared it in France, Spain,Italy, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia; by more popular demands as to how the system worked and where the power lay.  Thus it was learned that the power lay with the Commissionaires and they purportedly pursued the wishes of the Council of Europe - aka Council of Ministers - a body peopled by the same folk that ran their national government.  A revelation! Opposition to the imperial court through what we thought was a parliament but is not really a legislative instrument at all - no legislation initiation, no veto, no repeal, 'engineered' amendment, some minor delay - but still with enough power (just) to 'out' a Commission.  So this national government clone sitting in the imperial court with due privilege according to the size of the nation sending their voice is the problem.  Thence a realisation that only opposition in EUParl and the Council of Ministers (within the QMV constraints) will allow the people to be heard. The pro-EU lobby is slowly losing control of every single country.  Soon the EU parliament will be the only one they control and that control will be gone in 2019. Do not underestimate the effect of a UK exit from the EU. It will be perceived worldwide as a two fingered salute to the EU. We will have labelled the Brussels regime as "rubbish" and the world will listen because history says they dare not to do so. That's going to happen in May 2017 and will signal the end of French/German hegemony over Europe. By May 2019 the europhiles will be facing the loss of the EU parliament.

The British people are very misunderstood on the continent. I have heard it said that the Dutch are the only people to truly understand them, although I have little idea why.

The fact is that the British people have already made up their minds about the EU and we will be leaving. I expect a majority in the realm of 60-70% in favour of doing so. Ignore opinion polls that suggest that the vote will be close because it will not. The europhile campaign is actually in full swing but the British people are ignoring them. We are just not listening to EU rubbish any more. Every decision made in Brussels is now another nail in the europhiles coffin and it can only get worse.

Proponents of the "Euro" often cite the gold standard era from 1879 to 1914 as demonstrating the benefits of a common currency. But the gold standard also had its costs. The period was characterized by declining prices from 1879 to 1896, rising prices thereafter, and sharp fluctuations within each period, especially severe in the 1890s. The standard was viable only because governments were small (spending in the neighborhood of 10 per cent of the national income rather than 50 or more per cent as now), prices and wages were highly flexible, and the public was willing to tolerate, or had no way to moderate, wide swings in output and employment. Take away the rose-colored glasses and it was hardly a period or a system to emulate. Not sure if he is correct here. The pre-WW1 gold standard was a good system. He sees deflation as a negative, but their is no evidence that deflation is negative when productivity is growing and prices/wages are not expected to grow. To be sure, deflation now would be negative, but back then there is no evidence that is was. Reworked data by the prime economic historians show this. The 'sharp flunctions' are also not correct, or maybe its correct that they were 'sharp' however they were not deep or long. Most of them were caused by a horrible banking system, not be the gold standard itself. Other countries with better bankings (for example Canada) did have far less problems.  I would call it highly flexible but maybe more flexible then now. Seams to me the problem is expectations and not actual flexibility...

An Optimum Currency Area, a region that would maximize economic benefit by sharing a common currency, thus subscribing to the governing body's monetary policy. Since it's usually a free floating economy, the exchange rate also becomes a tool for the policy body. In the case of countries though, some argue and we see this with Greece, this forces a country to give up its monetary policy and 'sovereignty according to some and instead rely on fiscal policy to maintain the BOP accounts. They no longer can depreciate their currency to improve advantage in exports to help a deficit and/risk capital outflows from the country. As far as I know though, and it might be only for fixed exchange rate economies, but this one economist named Rudi Dornbusch came up with the overshooting exchange rate model saying that manipulating the exchange rate can be difficult to achieve the intended goal because of the volatile nature of the exchange rate system. I also remember the higher risk a country, the more issues that can arise and Greece with corruption isn't exactly a model example.  It doesn't even necessarily have to be a joint group of countries. Some economists have proposed OCA regions for the U.S and Canada with the idea that broad policy goals intended to help one area one hurt another areas as badly. It catch on because you can imagine how Americans on the state independence reacted to that one.  The thing with the Euro and Mundell called this failing with Greece joining was first off, they 'worked their books' to get in after several attempts and it wasn't really an open secret. In his paper where he coined the OCA, he says for it to work, there needs open fiscal transfer within the union or it can lead to instability in peripheral members. If your mobility of capital (the BP curve in the IS-LM-BP model) is immobile (a vertical line if you took economics or international finance) within the internal region, then the external valuation of the currency won't perform the stabilization function that's required.  If anyone remembers more about this then feel free to add on, and here's the paper if you want to read it. I won't lie, it's a dry read if economics or finance aren't your thing.

The International Monetary Fund concluded its annual meeting in Lima with a warning to central bankers that the world economy risks another crash unless they continue to support growth with low interest rates.  The Washington-based lender of last resort said in its final communiqué that uncertainty and financial market volatility have increased, and medium-term growth prospects have weakened. “In many advanced economies, the main risk remains a decline of already low growth,” it said, and this needed to be supported with “continued accommodative monetary policies, and improved financial stability”. The IMF’s managing director, Christine Lagarde, said there were risks of “spillovers” into volatile financial markets from central banks in the US and the UK increasing the cost of credit. The IMF has also urged Japan and the eurozone to maintain their plans to stimulate their ailing economies with an increase in quantitative easing. But she urged policymakers in Japan and the eurozone to boost their economies with an expansion of lending banks and businesses via extra quantitative easing. But the policy of cheap credit and the $7 trillion of quantitative easing poured into the world economy since 2009 has become increasingly controversial. A quartet of former central bank governors responded to the IMF’s message with a warning to current policymakers that they risked sowing the seeds of the next financial crisis by prolonging the period of ultra-low interest.  In a study launched in Lima to coincide with the IMF’s annual meeting, the G30 group of experts said keeping the cost of borrowing too low for too long was leading to a dangerous buildup in debt.  The study was written by four ex-central bank governors, including Jean-Claude Trichet, former president of the European Central Bank, and Axel Weber, previously president of the German Bundesbank, and now chairman of UBS...Perhaps the Rothschilds owned IMF can stop getting the whole world into their debt. Perhaps the privately owned fakely named federal reserve can stop ripping off America with its interest laden currency. Perhaps the owned American government could grow some real balls and print their own interest free money, it's not hard a 10 year old could do it, SHAMEFUL. Then perhaps the IRS could stop stealing people's labor money in illegal tax. Income tax on people's labor in the USA is VOLUNTARY., no law exists to make people pay tax on their hard labor. Every cent of people's labor tax in the USA is illegally stolen from the workers by the IRS and given to the Rothschilds fakely named federal reserve as interest to them for printing ink onto paper. Get rid of the greedy central Rothschilds controlled central banks ( like Iceland and Hungary have done ) our world would not be in their continual war induced shit hole.

???? "DUCH" REFERENDUM ON uKRAINE ???? WHY "DUCH" ???

A Dutch referendum is to be held on an EU agreement for closer relations with Ukraine, after 427,000 people backed a citizens' initiative.The No Level movement is taking advantage of a new law allowing advisory referendums.  The Dutch parliament had already backed the EU deal, which removes trade barriers between the EU and Ukraine.  But campaigners fear that it could be a step towards EU membership and would cost Dutch taxpayers billions of euros.  "This is a chance to say we're here too," says Eurosceptic Thierry Baudet, who argues that Dutch voters should have their say on policies such as EU expansion, legislation and aid packages.   In particular he says the treaty would enable Ukrainians to travel without visas across Europe when their country is in conflict with Russia. Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych triggered months of unrest in Ukraine and eventually his overthrow when he pulled back from signing the EU Association Agreement in November 2013. Since then, Ukraine's new government has signed the deal and parts of the treaty have provisionally come into place. The trade part of the agreement will come into provisional effect on 1 January 2016, but will not be fully in force until all 28 EU member states ratify it. Six countries have yet to do so.

"A very big part of the agreement such as political dialogue on financial co-operation [will come into effect] but not everything," a spokeswoman told the BBC. Under the new Dutch law, which requires 300,000 signatures to trigger a vote, the referendum has to take place within six months. Although the result will not be binding on the government, it will have to be considered if turnout is above 30% and a majority votes against the agreement. Jan Roos from No Level ("GeenPeil" in Dutch) said it was vital for turnout to go above 30% as it would then be "hard for the cabinet to again ignore the voice of the people".

The creation of a "United States of Europe" has been seen as a necessary step to insulate the eurozone from the financial contagion that bought it to its knees after 2010.  It is a view shared by Mr Blanchard's successor at the IMF, American Maurice Obstfeld, who has championed deeper eurozone integration as the best way to plug the institutional gaps in EMU. Mr Blanchard, however, said no institutional fixes would bring back prosperity back to the single currency.  Without the power to devalue their currencies, peripheral economies would forever be forced to endure "tough adjustment", such as slashing their wages, to keep up with stronger member states, he said.  In this vein, Mr. Blanchard dismissed any talk of a growth "miracle" in Spain - which has been hailed as a poster child for Brussels' austerity diktats. He added he was "surprised" that sluggish eurozone economies were not doing better in the face of a cocktail of favorable economic conditions.  "When people talk about the Spanish miracle, I react. When you have 23pc unemployment and 3pc growth, I don't call this a miracle!!!!!!!!" "I thought that the zero interest rate, the decrease in the price of oil, the depreciation of the euro, the pause in fiscal consolidation, would help more than they have", he said. I don't want to leave the EU because "there are technocrats I don't like."  I want to leave because it is the only way DEMOCRACY will be restored to Romania ! I do not want foreign politicians and foreign bureaucrats making laws which will be imposed on me when our own Government has opposed them because they are not in our interests. I want the ability to vote OUT the people who make the laws. The issue is SOVEREIGNTY and DEMOCRACY.

Anybody with a bachelor's degree in economics could have predicted the problems with the Euro. The creation of the Euro was done with full understanding that floating currencies are powerful adjustment mechanisms, and that the risks that one country's problems could poison the well for all. What everyone is missing is that the creators of the Euro thought/hoped they would be able to control these problems before they arose, and that the gains from lowering transaction costs and trade barriers would outweigh the difficulties that resulted from the Euro.  What everyone is ignoring is the fact that the ECB (and others) did next to nothing to stop this crisis from happening during the last decade when important steps should have been taken. Also, there were countries that profited mightily as a result of the Euro, and part of their success is directly due to the same setup that caused Greece's downfall - but they're now largely unwilling to do anything to repair the situation. So the lesson of this crisis shouldn't (IMO) just be that currency unions are bad and that opponents of the Euro were right. There are costs and benefits to common currencies. More importantly though, people need to be conscious of both, and not just accepting all the benefits and ignoring any potential disasters. I realize this is all 20/20 hindsight, but so many of the problems of the Greece crisis could have been avoided even with a currency union, but nobody had the willpower or the desire to tackle them at the time...What everyone is ignoring is the fact that the ECB (and others) did next to nothing to stop this crisis from happening during the last decade when important steps should have been taken.  No pre-emptive action will ever be taken to deal with bubbles while politics dominates economics. The public will never be able to distinguish between an artificial correction forced so that a bubble popped before it became economy sized and a real recession. If the ECB had intervened it would have caused a political crisis as politicians hammered the body for ruining the economy.  Of course this is nothing to do with where the boundaries of power lie. This is a general problem with politics. Somebody could have forcibly popped the leverage bubble in the world economy in 2005 but that man would have been known as the man who took all your money away.

Governments and central banks risk tipping the world into a fresh financial crisis, the International Monetary Fund has warned, as it called time on a corporate debt binge in the developing world.  Emerging market companies have "over-borrowed" by $3 trillion in the last decade, reflecting a quadrupling of private sector debt between 2004 and 2014, found the IMF's Global Financial Stability Report.  This dangerous over-leveraging now threatens to unleash a wave of defaults that will imperil an already weak global economy, said stark findings from the IMF's twice yearly report. The Fund warned there was no margin for error for policymakers navigating these hazardous risks. The slightest miscalculation, they said, could collapse into a "failed normalisation" of interest rates and market conditions, wiping 3pc from the world's economic output over the next two years. Governments borrow, and borrow and borrow from banks in order to spend. Their security is their power to tax the people. But by spending they buy the electorate. But the ability to tax is being eroded by companies registering in tax havens. So they borrow even more, which sets the interest rates through demand.   Eventually the system collapses. All Governments should be restricted in their ability to borrow as a prudent measure. "The IMF forecasts that global output will fall to its lowest level in five years at 3.1%" I think you'll find that refers to the GROWTH of output rather than its level. Which is hardly Armageddon, even if you believe the IMF's forecast - which as we know, are notoriously unreliable. "The world's major central banks should ensure policy remains "accommodative" for fear of setting off a new wave of instability that would see bond prices rise and asset prices collapse, said the IMF." I think you'll find they fear a FALL in bond prices (the counterpart to a rise in yields). Do any of you journos understand anything about economics and finance? As for the IMF itself, clearly they are aiming for a new Great Inflation. They know the current level of debt is unsustainable, and the only question is who takes the loss? By stoking up inflation they will ensure that ordinary savers take most of it, rather than banks and governments.

The same economists that governments of every political colour have listened to for decades still rule supreme! They have been paid to tell each administration all they need is to spend more money to make it 'right'. That money has never existed because it has never been produced as a profit, so excess, of anything! It's merely been printed as valueless paper.  Governments have freely allowed the banks to make profits regardless making governments the problem, not the banking system!

We have no clue how economies may have improved had governments let banks fail before these crises ever became a part of our economies.  An earlier comment welcomes the demise of capitalism and sees that as the whole problem. I'm not sure whether there has ever been a true capitalist or free market economy in any modern country in recent history? There is certainly not a single one today. Capitalism, right or wrong, only succeeds when it is accepted that some will fail and there will be victims who cannot succeed and so will not survive.  We all now live with only left wing governments who are not allowed to accept the concept of failure in any member of their societies regardless of any self imposed shortcomings!  No economy can afford that which is why socialism has never worked anywhere it has been tried. Government control and mismanagement have been totally to blame for the economic mess we find ourselves in. The only other culprits who bear just as much blame are we the voters who put them in place. If a child has only a pound/dollar, or whatever, in its hand and the object in the store it must have costs that pound/dollar plus a couple of pennies or cents, it understands it can't afford to buy it!  The child may have hysterics and demand its parents make it right and find the extra, but it still actually recognizes basic economics, something our governments have chosen to ignore for decades.  The IMF is no less crooked than any other financial agency, the world's banking system or the governments who support them all. You can bet your life that when this inevitable recession and world financial crisis arrives it will still be the likes of the IMF, the bankers and a majority of politicians world wide who make sure they are taken care of well before the communities they will ruin.  Wake up and welcome to the real world. You can't live on ever increasing debt. Our biggest shame is that it is quite obvious that those who will be left to survive the economic mess we are making are the children who we all pretend are the future of our world. We all continue to be hypocrites and narcissists only interested in ourselves.