England v the European Union

The Daily Mail has more than its fair share of EU knockers who think their Little England would be the wealthiest and most guilt-free paradise on earth, if it wasn’t for the blood-sucking corruption and mindless incompetence of their EU colonisers. Many of them think Spain is a 'leper colony' for disgruntled ex-pats and gloat at any perceived misfortune that besets us. 'Serves them right," they say.

Well said Mike. I am sure that the Daily Mail, probably the worst paper published in the UK (The Sun comes a close second) would much prefer mainland Europe's individual nations to be at constant loggerheads if not actual war. When people in England (and I restrict my comments to England deliberately) talk of "Europe" instead of the mainland, I wonder which continent they think the British Isles actually is  part of!!!

Not sure how the "informal" economy can balance out the high unemployment. On the one hand you have a huge burden on the state in unemployment benefits, and on the other, you have huge numbers of people working, but paying no taxes to help with this burden. Surely a recipe for financial disaster? The informal economy exists largely due to the exorbitant cost of employing anyone (or being self employed) legally. Make it cheaper and easier for people to work legally, and surely you would be able to, how do they say in the Baltics, shoot two rabbits with one bullet?

I have just received an e-mail from 'her indoors'; she send me lots of loving hags. Otherwise known as hugs.

There was a very good EoS article recently on the 'informal economy' in Spain. I take your point, Roberto, I agree on it   ...   but will Sr. Prime Minister? I distrust unemployment figures as they are transparently absurd; subject to imaginative number crunching in the UK and Spain and elsewhere. They are wholly unreliable as an indicator of the true situation.

I recall a time when my home city of Liverpool was (statistically) a basket case, an unemployment blackspot and as such the happy recipient of enormous EU investment. It was a puzzle to me as the city's economy was obviously buoyant. The stores in Church and Lord Steets' were more profitable that London's Oxford Street. The Jaguar main dealers at Knotty Ash was selling more cars than any other Jaguar main dealers, inc' London.

A young joiner explained it to me. Liverpool has its own economy; very little actually goes through the till, therefore it is unrecorded. I asked a builder friend, who was in the system, how much he made a year. About fifty-grand; how much did he declare? £20k.  On paper the poor bugger was in the workhouse but in fact he was doing well. That is why there are statistics   ...   you know the rest of the story.