EU: Look Who Sets The Agenda Now: Anglo-Saxon Media

Look who sets the agenda now

With the crisis, power is increasingly concentrated in Brussels, where not just European institutions but also the most powerful, English-speaking media, congregate. Both make the agenda for politics in member states, writes a Belgian columnist.

By Bernard Bulcke

Sad state of affairs, that is has become these vile Ango-saxon media outlets that somehow are setting the agenda.

Anybody has ideas to fight this quasi-putsch of free-thought?

 

I can not see any problem here.

 

Why would you resent the smartest team setting the pace?
The Zoners are all losers . What exactly do you think they have to tell us that is interesting?

 

Considering you are pretty much right-wing, and Anglo-Saxon countries are too -- this was ought to be expected.

 

HaHaHa,

a nice argument, anything else?

 

The failure of the welfare state and "democratic socialism" cannot be covered up or hidden by a friendly EU media. Ignoring the warning signs for decades is what brought the EU to the brink.

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You see here's the problem. Anyone who knows the Dutch, knows that the EU has no business telling and mandating how the Dutch "are". The polder model is more than a decision making process, it is the Dutch people. It encompasses them as people and they treat life.

The EU has no business in dictating to Member States, on their internal business.

 

This is frankly rubbish and I suspect that you are basing it on one issue or the UK keeping their national currency. This does not make the UK the "smartest team".

The UK has poor education and shockingly bad social mobility. It panders to the Square Mile, which in turn is the main source of income for the whole country. The UK places it's emphasis on companies, not people.

There are a good many EU countries whooping the UK in terms of "smartest team" and I say this as a Brit.

 

That and our banks buying AAA rated debts from US banks, who deliberately hid sub-prime debt inside the AAA wrapper. Also, agreeing to deal with US companies who advised investors to buy investments and subsequently bet against their own clients. And allowing the country with the reserve currency to maintain a 1% interest rate from the Fed, which drove the US housing bubble, following from the WWW bubble.

Oh, and thinking it was acceptable that the country with the world reserve currency to honestly believe that "greed is good".

Yes, except all of this, the US holds no responsibility at all in this mess.

 

Don't worry, Bennie is bailing you out.

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Great retort Don!

 

Meanwhile, I am grateful to Spiegel Online for reporting that Angela Merkel's party wishes to remove Germany's Federal Constitutional Court's jurisdiction over European issues.

It seems the Court got in the way of the eurocrats' plans so it had to be brought to heel.

 

The UK education system is so bad that it usually has three of its Universities ranked in the top world fifteen .Strange .
As a country we are rated as one of the world's great innovators and research excellence is world renowned .Amazing how poorly educated people achieve this .
Although unscientific , look at the standards of our so called cousins -- this site must boast the most concentrated bunch of badly educated males imaginable .
Let alone Racists whose invective against Muslims and Jews is so shocking that public disclosure would be a disaster and world scandal .

Your Social Mobility point is just a random thought you invented as you posted .It's garbage . Means nothing .
Your stereotype comments about the strength of our Finance sector seem to come from someone with several chips on his brain and shoulders . World pre-eminence obviously is a failure in your estimation
Perhaps we should mine coal or iron or get back into ship building with materials we cannot affordably produce .May be some mid Channel piracy .

As for concentrating on Companies rather than people --- let me know about this unusual sector --- the ones which operate without people .

 

I wouldn't confuse the university for education in general for the hoi polloi.


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Wow, are you sure you are living in Britain?!

Although I respect the sense of pride you have developed for your newly adopted home-country, let us keep it factual -- shall we?

It's a fact, that social mobility in the UK is the lowest in the entire EU.

Want to send a kid to university: £10.000-£15.000 annually per child!



Here in Belgium the subscription is €550/year if you haven't a scholarship, €80 if you do! The scholarship you receive is between €100-€1500, depending on your situation: you need housing, train subscription, etc.

In short, my guess is you picked the wrong EU-country to make your home, you would have been better of in BENELUX, Scandinavia, France, Germany or Austria. I think Austria would have suited you best, just a feeling.

 

It doesn't seem to have worked much in your favour. I googled the ten most well known Belgians and came up with this:

http://www.eupedia.com/belgium/famous_people.shtml

It's something of a travesty that there are about 13 only and the first goes back 1600 years with only three in the last 100 years.

Try applying that to Britain and see the difference.

 

Are you being serious, Beevee?

If so, very sad -- very sad indeed, Beevee.

 

Indeed it is - for Belgium.

 

Don't be too hard on BV.. His English education makes him believe that the French were wimps in WW1 because of the Maginot Line (!)

 

So what? The EU Currency should've been made of stronger stuff! It should've had the financial and institutional safeguards that allow it to continue to function as a viable currency no matter how bad the situation becomes.

There is no excuse for creating a world wide major trading currency and then leaving the institutional structures that undergird it weak and useless!

It is not America's fault the Euro is collapsing, but the fault of its designers and perpetuators.

 

I understand your point and it is factored into my reply .
But in an area which is notoriously difficult to measure , experience suggests that looking at pinnacle achievement is a reasonable indicator of what lies below .
" a good indicator but not rigorous proof"
Also , experience suggests that pinnacle achievement tends to raise average standards over the long haul -- sets ever improving goals and aims , provides individual and institutional role models etc . imo

 

The age of Statistics throws up many traps .
Why would you even dream of comparing Social Mobility for a small island against an enormous mass like mainland Europe . It's like comparing an Elephant to a Bulldog imo .
And then you must factor in the perception ( right or wrong) that many of the best safety nets in adverse conditions are in the UK . Why move , particularly in hard times ?
That's one of the main reasons that people trudge half the world to come into Team GB in the first instance .
You cannot in one breath admit that we look to be one of the most sensible places to live in within the EU , and then criticise the same people for a lack of social mobility .


As for University Fees .
Our previous government came up with the absurd idea that we needed 50% of our children in University . Crackpot idea unless geared towards vocational courses.
But being Socialists they forgot to cost the exercise , not the least being to assess infrastructure ability to absorb a deluge of extra pressures .
After that it was doomed . No money etc in a time where nobody has money for almost anything extra
Separately , there is an interesting argument whether any University education should continue to be free
For sure the idea seems awful , but the time of "freebies" may be over and perhaps society can only justify "Education" as advanced job training .That is very contentious but I guess we will be moving in that direction soon .
However , I do accept that our present system is ill considered and punitive . .

 

Yes, those three universities really help your average Joe Bloggs in the street. More like Cameron and Blairs kids. We shoudl aplaud ourselves for sustaining the status quo.

Or was it that I was talking about the education of the masses?

No. The UN and a variety of British institutions have studies social mobility and the UK is ranked alongside the US as the worst in the Western world. This statistic is common in all studies.

So it isn't random and I didn't make it up.

Please, keep your petty minded insults to yourself. "World pre-emience"? The UK? Come one! Crumbling since the second world war, and has chosen not to look inwards as a way to develop and recover, but to nurture the "special relationship" with teh US, in order to attempt to project its foreign policy. It's pathetic.

Showing a nice shiny image to the world, whilst its core rots it from within. It's been like this for decades.

 

Worst way to rate a country - ever!

An educational system, which favours driving the very few (typically rich) kids to the top, instead of supporting the whole population is a shockingly bad system.

 

You admitted in the other thread you created (probably as a consequence of my post here) that the US was responsible for causing the current global financial crisis.

Now you want to simply wipe your hands and say "no matter what we do, your systems and processes should be capable of taking it".

Which is a non-manly way of seeing the world. "It's not our fault, it's not our fault" - meanshile on planet Earth, it is actually your fault.