The downsides, as I see them:
All told, I believe the benefits outweigh the costs, and have the added bonus of reducing the number of meaningless fixtures in far-flung places that fans would be mad to bother with.
To be sure, the number of European sides who qualify for tournaments does vary, and so does the qualifying method. Here is my simple guide to the more recent numbers:
12: 6 groups of 6, 2 from each qualifying. Teams come from 6 pots, with pot 1 being teams 1-6 by ranking, pot 5 being teams 25-30 and pot 6 the 6 "winners" of the minnows tournament.
13: as above, but with the 3rd placed teams competing for the final position (perhaps the 2 or 4 teams that come closest should playoff for the place)
14: 7 groups of 5 teams, 2 from each qualifying. Teams come from 5 pots, the first holding teams 1-7 by ranking, the 4th teams 22-28 and the final point consisting of 7 teams that survive a minnows tournament of all teams ranked below 29.
15 (European championships, minus host): as 12, except that the 6 3rd placed teams should playoff for the spare places.
22 (newly expanded Euro 2016 of 24, minus host and holder or 2 hosts): 11 groups of 5, with 2 qualifying from each. This would not require a preliminary minnows tournament, unless the number of UEFA countries expanded beyond 57 (and even then, perhaps only the very weakest would need to compete).
23 (24 team Euro 2016 minus host): 10 groups of 5, with 2 qualifying from each. 10 clubs to earn appearance in qualifying from all countries ranked outside top 40. Remaining 3 qualification spaces to be determined by best 3rd place sides, perhaps with playoffs to distinguish between them. It should be noted that the holder of the European Championship has never previously been granted automatic qualification, so this is the most likely number of qualifications spaces that will be up for grabs in 3 tournaments time.
Thus perhaps the most important component of the past century’s economic growth is the new commodity component—the goods and services of which people alive in the 1890s could dream but not purchase. Whenever we hear a sentence like “average GDP per worker in 1890 was equal to some $15,000 at 2008 prices,” we cannot help but think that the material standard of living then was about what we could obtain now if we had $15,000 to spend. But it was not. The simple valuing of the past’s production at the present's prices leaves out a very important part of the picture: the material standard of living then was about what we could obtain now if we had $15,000 to spend, but were required to spend it all on commodities that have been around for more than a century: no modern entertainment or communications or transportation technologies; no modern appliances; buildings, roads, bridges, and other infrastructure built using century-old technologies. And an income of $15,000 that must be spent exclusively on late nineteenth-century commodities is, for most of us, worth a lot less than $15,000.
"[A]n overwhelming majority of citizens said they believe that, during these
extremely uncertain times, our leaders have a responsibility to come
together,
sit the American people down, and lie through their teeth about
everything from
misappropriations of taxpayer dollars to the severity of the
credit crisis."
""Please, treat me like a child. Treat me like a five-year-old," Sacramento
resident David Cooke, 64, wrote in a letter to Congress."
(Edit: Part 2 of my retort to my response to a flyer I received from UKIP, part 1 can be found below)...
THE TRUTH ABOUT THE EUASDA charges 8p per 100g for bananas, and I've never seen cheaper bananas than that, even at a greengrocer. This works out as £800 per tonne. Import duties on bananas are €176 per tonne. Am I missing something here?
HIGHER FOOD PRICES
The EU subsidises farmers,
but penalises them when they grow too much which
leads to higher food
prices. If we import cheaper non EU food, we have to pay
huge import duties
direct to Brussels. (eg 105% on meat, 88% on Bananas
(sic)).
Membership of the EU costs the average family an extra £30 per week in
food
bills.
HIGHER GAS AND ELECTRICITY PRICES
EU law allows foreign companies to buy our utility companies, who then
overcharge us. The EU's high renewable energy targets will cost British families
£750 a year in higher energy prices - on top of the increases we are already
suffering.
Water bills are also rising by 20%, thanks to new EU regulations.
HIGHER COUNCIL TAX
We have to comply with costly EU recycling rules, or Brussels imposes
finces on our local councils.
AND IN THE FUTURE
- British jobs will be given to European workers because of EU laws.
- The EU will take control of our North Sea oil and gas fields.
- EU reception centres will be set up in African countries to process even
more immigrants to Europe.- Britain's amateur sea fishermen will have to fill in forms to register all
catches, and may then be unable to take fish home.- Our farmers will not be allowed to use certain pesticides, which will reduce
yields and push food prices even higher.- Car repair prices could double, because Brussels wants to phase out small
garages - forcving us to go to main dealers.- They intend to ban ordinary light bulbs and replace them with low energy
ones which cost 5 times more, give poor light and can cause health
problems.
1.In the future? Also, EU jobs will be given to British workers because of EU laws. And in more provincial news, Scottish jobs were given to English workers under UK law (and vice versa) many many years ago.
2. From the Norweigans? I haven't heard this proposed, but it will soon matter little, since production has long past its peak there.
3. The reception centres would be to prevent immigration, which is perceived to be a greater problem in several EU countries than it is here. Or would you prefer more people to come on little dinghies and drown at sea.
4. Quite right too. These waters are heavily overfished and every effort should be made to prevent further destruction. Of course, throwing back dead fish won't help, but I doubt UKIP would prefer heavy fines for unlicensed fishing, regardless of catch.
5. Certain pesticides: unsafe ones, perhaps? Again, so much the better, congratulations EU.
6. Another policy I've not heard about, but I can't imagine they want to "phase out small garages". More likely, I expect they want to ensure providers of a crucial safety service are licensed in some way.
7. I spent less than £2 on the 5 low energy bulbs in my room. They provide an awful lot of light, and cost LESS, because they use less energy. Also, "in the future"? These plans are set, and no UK government would back out of them, EU or no EU.
AND FINALLY
80% of our laws are made in Brussels. We just do what we are told. UKIIP is
the only major political party committed to leaving the EU and making Britain
great again.
I had no idea that MEPs were so productive. They must be great value for money, if an entire continent can get 4 times as many laws for about twice the price the UK pays for its own. And UKIP is a major political party - why do none of the opinion polls list it in their weekly/monthly releases then? Making Britain great again - is this a promise of re-colonisation, empty rhetoric or a heartfelt desire to work hard and improve those things that bring this country down, in the esteem of others (teenage drinking/pregnancy, football hooliganism)? I hope it isn't the first.
A FEW OF THE BENEFITS OF LEAVING THE EU
- Spend the £30m a day that we pay the EU out of our taxes - on new hospitals
and schools and higher pensions.- Thousands of jobs would be regained when we regain our fishing waters, and
fish would be cheaper.- Remove the threat of the EU Lisbon Treaty and keep full control of our
courts and our army.- Without Brussels red tape, British business would boom and create more
jobs.- We could stop unlimited EU immigration and make it easier to deport
criminals.
That was the front page. My response:
1. Open Europe, a Eurosceptic think tank estimates that over the period 2007-13, the UK will make a net contribution of €57bn. This amounts to €26m a day, or about £24m. Perhaps UKIP has some other data, but they don't cite it. I'm citing a Eurosceptic organistation that debunks a UKIP lie. That £24m a day is £8.6bn a year, which is not nothing, but amounts to less than 5% of our DEFICIT, let alone our budget. Small fry, in other words.
2. The EU's common fisheries policy has lead to OVERFISHING in all EU waters. Allowing the UK to set its own target will only reduce the surviving fish (tragedy of the commons) and the UK's fleet would also be excluded from EU waters. If we got cheaper fish, it would only be for 3-4 years before they started becoming scarce.
3. I don't perceive the Lisbon Treaty as a threat. The European Court of Human Rights is a superb institution, which we would have to be crazy to leave. The additional European courts complement, rather than supplant our own. Also, since the Falklands, when did Britain last enter war without allies, and why would we want to?
4. A more fashionable view is that too little regulation led us to where we find ourselves, namely in the midst of a massive recession. I wonder where they think the finance would come from, to fund this boom. China, perhaps?
5. True, but undesirable. The free movement of people is the EU's single greatest sucess, in my view (it is one of the things that makes war unthinkable).
Later pages will be analysed in future posts
**UPDATE (16/05/2009): In their Party Political Broadcast for the upcoming local elections, Nigel Farage (UKIP) claimed that the Eu is taking £40m per day from Britain. Obviously, being a Party Political Broadcast, there is no sourcing of this information, but it further extends the difference between truth and claim.**
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVp8UGjECt4
Also available on Greg Mankiw's blog, which is appropriate, since it his his "10 principles of Economics" which are being translated into non-specialist-ese.
"Mad cows, bird 'flu, swine flu... Wouldn't it be better if we all became vegetarians?At work, we came up with a new conspiracy: it's the vegan mafia who set all this up.
Removal of provision for a Christmas bonus payment in 2009.
