Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Multiple answers to Europe's maths problem
Financial Times ^ | June 18 2007 | Wolfgang Munchau

Posted on 06/18/2007 2:47:24 AM PDT by Lukasz

click here to read article


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-37 next last

1 posted on 06/18/2007 2:47:29 AM PDT by Lukasz
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: tired1; etabeta; Swordfished; pretorian_PL; vader69; vahet pole; ken21; norton; LadyPilgrim; ...
Eastern European ping list


FRmail me to be added or removed from this Eastern European ping list ping list.

2 posted on 06/18/2007 2:48:22 AM PDT by Lukasz
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Lukasz
Sorry to intrude like this, but is "maths" actually a word?

I hear it used in Southeast Asia a lot and thought it might be a linguistic holdover from the British colonial days here.

In the United States as far as I know we have always used the word "mathematics"

An American Expat in Southeast Asia

3 posted on 06/18/2007 2:52:02 AM PDT by expatguy (http://laotze.blogspot.com/)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: expatguy
Yes when I was an Expat, I heard it all the time in OZ. Must be normal Brit Linguistics though, FT is not Expat.
4 posted on 06/18/2007 3:00:06 AM PDT by Woodman ("One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives." PW)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: expatguy

Yes. Even in India and Australia, the shorter form of the word, ‘mathematics’ is ‘maths’.


5 posted on 06/18/2007 3:26:57 AM PDT by CarrotAndStick (The articles posted by me needn't necessarily reflect my opinion.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: expatguy

I thought in the USA you used the (even shorter) word “Math”? I keep seeing it in articles?


6 posted on 06/18/2007 3:57:45 AM PDT by agere_contra
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: expatguy

“Maths” is the preferred form in Commonwealth English, as opposed to the American term “math”.


7 posted on 06/18/2007 4:33:32 AM PDT by fzx12345 (ACLU DELENDA EST)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Lukasz

Why not give them votes according to how much money the country is delivering to the common budget. It could be gross money or net money. If it is net money then the spending will decrease faster.


8 posted on 06/18/2007 4:40:30 AM PDT by AdmSmith
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Lukasz

I was actually living in Nice when the EU summit was held on this very question. This was also at the time of the 2000 elections when Europeans were scratching their heads over the US Electoral College system.

The wisdom of our founding fathers became evident as the EU tried to do everything except “whatever America does.”

A lower house based on population, an upper house based on territory, an executive elected based on a winner take all electoral college system.

Hey, worked for us for more than 200 years...


9 posted on 06/18/2007 4:46:36 AM PDT by Philistone (Your existence as a non-believer offends the Prophet(MPBUH).)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: AdmSmith

Because the EU should not have budget at all. Anyway this would be the way to complete marginalizing of the new member states. If such argument would be clearly stated before they joined, perhaps they would stay outside. People who voted in all these referendums would be cheated.


10 posted on 06/18/2007 4:49:48 AM PDT by Lukasz
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: Lukasz; AdmSmith
It’s very important that Poland NOT be under a democratic (read: mob) thumb of Western European secularism. Europe would force abortion and homosexuality upon Poland’s economy. Though, I believe, Poland could and would stave off the sin within its borders, Poles would have to pay for abortions and welfare of non-procreatives as they age and spoil of their sin.

I love my America very much, but I know that my tax dollars are funding abortions, hypodermic needles for drug addicts, and condoms for perverts as well as all the propaganda to spoil the souls of children with worse vice than these. Take it from an American who’s paying for my elders’ generation of drug induced sluttiness! More than a third of my salary goes to their pot, and those younger than me have it worse (lots of financial traps from wacky mortgages to credit card traps). Transferring our debt upon Asian shoulders may have a disastrous return.

Poland, don’t you fall under the EU spell. Make your own coalition of Catholic states if you have to. If other Europeans think that they can enslave your populace into paying for their laziness and sin, then Europeans will continue in their sloth feeling no threat of discomfort to change. Tell them to stop smoking the bong, start strengthening their Natural families and pay for their own retirement! Western Europeans have tried to use cheap Middle East labor and they’ve been repaid with riots and train bombs. Now, the’re trying to transfer their debt upon your shoulders.

Poland, you are on the dawn of a new economic era with Life defining the values in a real common market and not the flaky Culture of Death’s flash-in-the-pan products of frivolous toys you’d find in a hyper-inflated fad store. Your nation is better off tilling the soil and plying the seas (agriculture and industry) instead opening another t-shirt shop selling sex toys and drug paraphernalia (which is the type of services the secular would rather have you provide).

Resisting this style of mob and financial tyranny will be yet another defining moment in human history where Poland save Western Europe from itself—again!

11 posted on 06/18/2007 6:42:50 AM PDT by SaltyJoe ("Social Justice" for the Unborn Child)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: Lukasz
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1852106/posts

£1,300,000,000,000 in debt...

...and this is only England. Want to be the one to shoulder this debt? Becoming low man on the totem pole with no real voting power means that you get to pay this off while Englishmen marry Englishmen and teach your sons to love little boys instead of little girls. If you have to inherit someone’s debt, then you should inherit their power as well.

America has large debt, but our gov’t also has “appropriated” huge amounts of land. If some nation wants to take our power with our debt, we can always take our debt back without losing power. Even though the real estate market is a little flat, we can still accept loads of willing AND law abiding LEGAL immigrants who’d love to purchase land with long term low interest loans. Don’t pay the debt, lose the land and get deported. Pay off the debt, get your land and citizenship.

Will England accept Hispanics? Hmmm, maybe our “amnesty” will come in the form of shipping illegal aliens in America to England to buy their real estate and pay off UK loans?

Maybe we should have more Poles filing for U.S. green cards. It’s not right to have such a large puddle of water between two great nations.

12 posted on 06/18/2007 8:39:56 AM PDT by SaltyJoe ("Social Justice" for the Unborn Child)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Lukasz

2+2=5 (for large values of 2)


13 posted on 06/18/2007 8:41:13 AM PDT by CholeraJoe ("You just killed a helicopter with a car!" "I know. I was out of bullets.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: expatguy

Yes, it is a word, but it doesn’t help the headline. Too many headlines fail to give a clue what the essay topic might be.


14 posted on 06/18/2007 8:42:29 AM PDT by RightWhale (Repeal the Treaty)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Philistone
A lower house based on population, an upper house based on territory, an executive elected based on a winner take all electoral college system.

That was my first thought too, but our system also depends on powers being divided in appropriate ways, and an orderly election schedule. The Europeans don't have a history of either of those (particularly the latter).

15 posted on 06/18/2007 5:56:55 PM PDT by speekinout
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: speekinout

The only problem with the EU is that the solution already exists... and the Americans invented it.

Europeans do NOT understand that the “United States” began as a solution to the same problem that Europe now faces: separate, autonomous states coming together to form a union.

The articles of confederation showed how NOT to create a true federal system.

Fortunately our founding fathers didn’t have a “Great Satan” as a bugaboo and could modify the articles into a constitution.

If Europeans could get over their Ameriphobia for 10 minutes, they’d see the wisdom...


16 posted on 06/18/2007 6:17:14 PM PDT by Philistone (Your existence as a non-believer offends the Prophet(MPBUH).)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: Philistone

I totally agree, but the EU would have to pretty much just edit our whole Constitution. Separation of powers, Representation, orderly elections, an independent judiciary, - it all has to be consistent.

(And our Founding Fathers did that all in 6-7 pages. If that isn’t a clue to its brilliance, I don’t know what is. :-))


17 posted on 06/18/2007 7:08:09 PM PDT by speekinout
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: speekinout

Agreed. The problem is that Europeans are used to authoritative central governments.Their only concern is getting a central government that does “what should be done.”

They have zero experience with the idea that individuals, if left to their own devices, will generally do the right thing.

The thing the IRKED me no end when living in France was the extent to which the average Frenchman had no confidence in his own ability to regulate his own affairs. It was always “the government should do something!”


18 posted on 06/18/2007 7:39:13 PM PDT by Philistone (Your existence as a non-believer offends the Prophet(MPBUH).)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: Philistone
The thing the IRKED me no end when living in France was the extent to which the average Frenchman had no confidence in his own ability to regulate his own affairs. It was always “the government should do something!”

I guess I won't ask how you feel about liberal Dems in the US. :-)

19 posted on 06/18/2007 8:23:29 PM PDT by speekinout
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]

To: speekinout

I think that goes without


20 posted on 06/19/2007 3:54:36 AM PDT by Philistone (Your existence as a non-believer offends the Prophet(MPBUH).)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-37 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson