France v UK mismatch?

[Pitre]

Ok, I get that covid resolution has cost both countries squillions to date, and that money is probably being printed like there's no tomorrow. However, how come both France and the UK (and the wider EU) haven't gone tits up financially? There doesn't seem to be any panic at all on either side of the channel? The pound carries on vaguely upward, shares are doing ok, house sales/prices are soaring both here and there. All talk of financial issues in southern European States has gone quiet.

Are we just sitting here waiting for st and fan to meet?

[rdjohn]

The whole world has been affected to a similar degree so there are no relative differences causing money to flow in any particular direction.

G7 countries tend always to be able to raise the day-to-day finances that they need. Its the long term outcomes where any big differences tend to show up.. The USA tends to be the most proactive and therefore the safest bet, the EU & UK less so.

China is the new superpower but needs wealthy countries to buy the stuff they make.

Covid will look cheap compared to seriously tackling global warming.

[anonymous-user]

Yep. When everyone’s in the st, no one’s in the st.

[Mike-tf3n0]

The British Gov borrows from the Bank of England and presumably the EU borrows from the Central European Bank so the whole affair becomes an imaginative accounting exercise!

[smifffymoto]

I don’t know about France and the UK but I am sat in Naples and it’s a fking dump.Visited Pompei today and guess what I saw,yep,a fking dump surrounding an ancient monument.

Italy seems to be a dirty,stinking dump in need of alot of money.

[rdjohn]

Mike-tf3n0 said:

The British Gov borrows from the Bank of England and presumably the EU borrows from the Central European Bank so the whole affair becomes an imaginative accounting exercise!

Not really how it works

https://positivemoney.org/how-money-works/advanced...

The “funny money” aspect of the BoE is that they are buying back government debt to keep inflation under control. But all governments are doing pretty much the same thing. Again, the US is about to reverse their position.

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/qu...

[ChocolateFrog]

smifffymoto said:

I don’t know about France and the UK but I am sat in Naples and it’s a fking dump.Visited Pompei today and guess what I saw,yep,a fking dump surrounding an ancient monument.

Italy seems to be a dirty,stinking dump in need of alot of money.

Easier just to concentrate on first world countries.

[Sebastian Tombs]

smifffymoto said:

I don’t know about France and the UK but I am sat in Naples and it’s a fking dump.Visited Pompei today and guess what I saw,yep,a fking dump surrounding an ancient monument.

Italy seems to be a dirty,stinking dump in need of alot of money.

To be fair Naples *is* a total sthole. They may have invented the pizza, and have the statue of the Veiled Christ (which they totally don’t give a st about), but I’d never go there again. Nearby Sorrento, and the Amalfi coast are lovely( go there instead) but you have to go through some dumps to get there. Like Pompeii Herculaneum is amazing but the modern town of Ercolano it’s attached to is an ‘Ndrangheta-dominated craphouse. And the Circumvesuviana is full of pickpockets.

Somewhere had to be Italy’s Bradford I suppose.

Northern Italy, however, is bloody lovely. Milan is a great city. The pretty towns of the Cinque Terre are lovely, and the lakes are fabulous. Especially Lake Como. One of my favourite places in the world.

I also love Chianti. It’s pretty, the wine and food are incredible, and the people are genuinely lovely. The only downside of that area is that the roads don’t always have tarmac.