Or a matzah cabal, as the case may be. 
Henry, have a few drinks.
If it was someone who seemsed to have a good grasp on the English language, I would agree with you. But I suspect that naxox is pulling words out of a dictionary like I would for Spanish with not much regard for connotation. I think he just means “influence strongly” but I could be wrong.
Dear Israel and America,
Naxox does not speak for us Europeans.
Shalom, Peace, Happy new year, Bizzatch.
So um, you looked at Greece anytime recently?
It is one of the biggest economic competitors to the United States. A few weeks ago the Euro was worth more than the dollar; the US-Japan-EU are the three largest economies in the world.
:rolleyes:
That would be your completely unbiased assertion, right?
Yeah, that’d be great, wouldn’t it? If only there was still any oil in the North Atlantic. But it’s all gone now.
Point taken, but I think there remains the question of whether naxawhat’shisface pulled the term out of a dictionary, or out of boilerplate anti-Semitic propaganda. It just sounded like a propagandistic charge, is what I’m saying.
Finland doesn’t grow corn. http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/fields/2052.html
However, Finland and France both grow sugar beets. They also grow sugar beets in Texas, Canada, and Indiana. Let’s use sugar beets.
This comparison is not a good one.
You’re saying that you don’t think it’s fair to expect Finnish sugar beet farmers to get the same price for their crop as French sugar beet farmers, the same way that it wouldn’t be fair for Texas sugar beet farmers to get the same price for their crop as Canadian sugar beet farmers.
But the problem with that comparison is that Texas and Canada are in different countries–Texas is in the USA and Canada is…in Canada.
Different countries pay different prices for crops because they are different economic units.
A better comparison would be to compare Texas sugar beet farmers with Indiana sugar beet farmers. Texas and Indiana are both in the USA, and are thus in the same economic unit, the way that Finland and France are both in the same economic unit, the EU, with its Common Agricultural Policy.
And actually, both Finnish and French sugar beet farmers are now getting EU subsidies for their crops, the same way that US sugar beet farmers get subsidies for their crops.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2285293.stm
And I found this, an interesting discussion of how Finland’s agriculture has changed since joining the EU. Basically, it sounds like the last 7 years have been a shakedown period, with a lot of people who used to “farm” by keeping a few cows getting out of the farming business, and Finnish agriculture overall getting more streamlined and efficient.
I notice (on page 16) that in 1999 Finland was only 71% self-sufficient in sugar, down from 91% self-sufficient in 1990. I’m assuming this is related to cheaper sugar now being available for import from overseas, with the collapse of the Soviet Union.
I found this, too–some reasons why it’s a good idea to be in the EU.
http://www.mmol.hamk.fi/eng/project/Micro/report/esfifar.htm
To summarize: the Finns had smaller but more efficient, and more productive farms, with up-to-date farm equipment, and things like computers to do the bookkeeping.
Apparently the Estonians think it’s worthwhile to trade some power and independence for access to better markets, better loans and subsidies, better equipment, and better prices. The Finns made that decision in 1995.
According to the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom, Finland’s score has been rising (well, actually, dropping) steadily since 1995. It looks to me like Finland has benefited from membership in the EU.
http://cf.heritage.org/index/country.cfm?ID=49.0
Well, this is how it works over here, too. The states have a certain amount of power to make their own decisions, but on other matters they have to defer to the Federal government. It’s called “sharing power”. I understand that it’s probably a difficult jump for people who were accustomed to being a Sovereign Nation, like Finland, to have to share some power with a central governing unit, like the EU, but you’ll get used to it.
What, nobody noticed my ‘matzah cabal’ joke?
Sorry, Mike, you spelled “matzo/matzoh” wrong, so we didn’t realize it was a Funny.
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“BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!”
OK, feel better now?
D’oh!
Yes, it does.
Henry, you’re driving me to drink. Please stop it. I’m begging you.
Ditto. His/her/its use of english seems pretty good at conveying the overarching message.
sailor wrote:
Im am so sorry. I will not write like that again. I try to, but that is how I often write in Finnish.
I really like You. You are one of the few that are not believing in propaganda, but thinking by Yourself!
And You are a patriot, which I respect very much.
You see, there are many nationalists that are defending whatever nationalistic “thinking”. It is not thinking, it is “believing blindly in national propaganda”.
People do not see a difference between nationalism and patriotism. (That is one of the biggest problems also here in Russia.)
Anyhow, do not begin to drink. If You do, You begin to write like…, like…, [looking for a proper word in Webster] …, Henry? 
Jackmannii
I think it is about midnight now in “Location: the extreme center”, where You seem to live.
So I take some symbolic drinks with You;
- first goes for Happy New Year
- second for better relationships between people all over the world
- peace
I do not know what You had in Your glas, I had Fanta, a Coca-Cola-product, made in Moscow.
Was it OK?
ARGHHHH! The hamsters ate my excellent-provocative-impressive-lunatic answer I got popping in my head with the Fanta-bubbles while taking some drinks with Jackmannii.
Anyhow, I try to write at least a shadow of this forever-gone answer. In a very short form.
Duck Duck Goose wrote:
??? That is exactly what I am saying. I am saying that USA believes it has, more or less, the whole garden under control, or can act by itself where ever it likes etc. It is more or less like this.
but there is another block growing; a wasp in Your garden, the expanding EU, that tries to control more and more through its money. Not cannons, but money. (Coming to this later).
So when people speaks about the growing hegemony, imper… or what ever, meaning USA, I try to point out that every block tries to grab as much as possible.
EU is the fastest growing one, in my eyes anyhow.
Summa Summarum: Every block tries to be bigger, stronger have more influence, able to put more pressure on the other blocks etc.
And I am not sure that this block or that block is better than the other one.
Anyhow, USA has never run EU, but it can still put some pressure on it, but every day less and less.
Monty wrote:
Could You be more specific?
Against Germany? Yes, it is not on my top 10 list.
I like the Norwegian, the Greek and I am quite impressed at the few Egyptians I know. Germany comes low down in my list. But logically someone has to.
Am I also a racist? Of course I am. Just like everyone else, a little bit anyhow, but that is not the topic here.
But please take some examples, or even one from my texts and I will answer.
Blackeyes wrote:
Holy Fuck, You are right!!!
[Henry whipping himself wildly in the cellarage, shouting: “I was wrong, I am a dirty lying bastard, I should repent and fill my ugly soul with remorse… Blackeyes was right, I was wrong, I am a lying bastard, I should repent and fill my ugly soul with remorse… Blackeyes was right” (repeating about 100 times).
Furthermore Blackeyes wrote, first quoting me:
quote: “3) It is or soon will be, the biggest single competitor to USA.
Not today, not tomorrow, but look how the blocks are rebuilt and think 30 years.
If You think that it will not happen with blocks, think 30 years back.”
Blackeyes:
I really do not know who is the second biggest right now. I think the far-east-block is still bigger than EU. I mean Japan, South-Korea, China through Hong-Kong etc. to be bigger, but I also believe, as I wrote, that “EU will soon be the biggest single competitor to USA”. But this is a question how You see the
Far-East block, how You define that block.
But this is an opinion, more or less, if we think that South-Korea, China and Japan are separate markets/producers, naturally EU is bigger.
If someone has more definitions/statistics on this, please let me know.
- Yes EURO is more worth than the USD, and the English pound has been decades more worth than the dollar, but it does not tell anything about the economical power. The growth does indicate something, but it does not give the whole picture.
quote of my earlier writing:
“5) It will make everything the next 5 years or so, to get EURO as the only currency in as many countries as possible. Later as the number 1 currency in the world. Later.”
quote:
- The only sensible stubborn people in Europe are the Norwegians. They keep themselves outside all the shit and trade with whom ever they like.
Blackeyes wrote:
If You mean the word “stubborn”, it is a small internal joke; The Nordic countries has always assumed that we, the Finns, are the most stubborn. Even Stalin said:
“The Finns are incredible stubborn. You have to hit them on the head again and again, until they learn.”
The Norwegians voted against to join EU, so now they are the most stubborn, and we Finns has to stand in the shame.
If You mean the word “shit”. Yes it is shit not to be independent any longer.
And in this question I am unbelievable biased!
quoting me:
“But they have oil, so they can afford to be outside EU and pee in the Atlantic if they want.”
Blackeyes wrote:
[quote]
Yeah, that’d be great, wouldn’t it? If only there was still any oil in the North Atlantic. But it’s all gone now.
Really!!!? I did not know that. What a black day to hear such a news.
But anyhow, I know the old vikings will fix it somehow and not sell their independence. Anyhow, I am on their side.
Duck Duck Goose wrote:
Good Grief!
CIA!!! They know nothing about Finland! I never told them. Not a single word! 
If they would not be so ignorant, they would use Webster:
corn n.
- a cereal plant such as wheat, oats, or barley
- the grain of such plants
- (US, Canad & NZ) maize
- (Slang) something unoriginal or oversentimental [end of quoting Webster]
and this is the only information they ever get from me:
Finland grow wheat, oats, and barley!
And we would like to continue to do so, but:
In the following quote I have replaced the words “sugar beets” with the word “corn”, because we indeed grow corn. I think Duck Duck will allow me to do that
snipped quote:
Exactly! Finland and France are also different countries. And it is forbidden to give national subsidiaries to the Finnish farmers! EU forbids our parliament to do anything about it!
This is exactly like I would like to have it.
Does Washington forbid the state Indiana from helping it farmers? Any kind of economical help?
The answer might be whatever. Anyhow we are, France and Finland, different countries, and should have the right to grow our own bread!
Yes, we both get EU-subsidies. It is true, but the price is so low, that when we sell it for the price EU command us to sell it for, the farmer can not pay for his gasoline that his tractor uses!
When the French farmer has his oat growing in may some 5 inches length, we have 5 inches of snow and ice on our fields.
When we have our oat ripe, in August, the French farmer is preparing to take his second harvest. We get our next harvest the next summer.
And in a climate like France, the growth of corn per hectare is about twice as big, measured in tons.
Try to compete with the same prices and almost the same subsidies with France or Italy at these conditions.
And EU forbids our parliament to help our farmers, even so much, that we could be self-sufficient as a country!
But EU has free passage to sell to us their corn.
It is called “free trade”. I call it “selling our indepence”. But this is just the top of the ice-berg.
Now they try to get our army also integrated. There is also a discussion about a NATO-army, that is a totally other thing, so I do not want to go into that.
I would not be surprised if the stubborn Finns would be gin to fight any army with different uniforms that steps inside the Finnish boarders. But before that, they would shoot the politicians. Since last war the government has escaped a
left-wing revolt, but can not escape a right-wing revolt, because most of the left will join.
This is not likely to happen, because the politicians will far earlier give us a chance to vote again about EU.
More later, I get guests again.
Here I am snipping all the way and take just the main things:
- the interesting discussion is a pdf.-file directly from the ministry of agriculture… I can only say WOW! for that finding because I could not download that file.
- to compare ex-sovhos’es and ex-kolhos’es in Estonia with the Finnish farmers is very interesting indeed. The difference is quite like the difference between the space-programs between USA and China.
- the quote “people who used to “farm” by keeping a few cows getting out of the farming business, and Finnish agriculture overall getting more streamlined and efficient” means in reality some thousand of farmers going bankrupt every month and there is no work for them.
In the area where I worked last time in Finland was an agricultural area, with wooden industry.
The unemployment percentage was and still is about 27 %!!!
Streamlining indeed.
The quote: “…that Finnish farms have a lot of loans (about the same amount as the turnover) but Estonian farms have fewer loans.”
This translated to normal language means that the farmers has heavy debts and are at the brink of bankruptcy and that the Estonian farmers has no place to get any loans, because they can not give any guaranties.
Remember that they are based on old kolhoses that mostly produced weed.
It is just too long discussion, but shortly said:
EU has an overproduction of agricultural products, so it want to close down everything in the north and the southern part will make the farming.
A cleaver idea, but it has nothing to do with that the countries keeps their sovereign nation. It is just making us a reserve of people with no work that can “look for work anywhere in EU”. In English it can be described with two words:
Debts and unemployment.
I wrote:
“Our fucking Finnish politicians says that we are an independent
state within EU…We can’t even pee without checking with
Brussels. And our politicians, when people want to have changes,
tells us “that according to EU we can’t do this or that”… etc.”
Duck Duck wrote:
“Sharing power” means “give the power and the right to decide away”.
But yes, EU gives us money to re-school our unemployed, but not to create jobs.
It is forbidden to use the money to any investments, not even a telephone.
Thank You.
I am an exporter myself, but I would rather fill all the papers needed for export to Sweden (which I do not need to do now), than see my country in the state it is.
I export 80% of my Russian products to Sweden, but because Finland has not the old (forbidden by EU) contracts with Russia about zero-export/import taxes, I have now to pay 10% export-taxes when I export to Finland, to EU, from Russia.
People has now realized that the “danger from Russia, if we not vote for EU”, was pure bullshit 1994 -95. As the rest of the pro-EU propaganda.
This is a long, but very interesting history. Too long.
I hope we can soon vote again, even if the politicians are against it.
And EU is bloody against it.
Somehow, Henry B reminds me of Zippy.
Henry, file for future reference: When you’re speaking to Americans, “corn” means “maize”. And since the CIA is an American organization, it would have been safe to assume that they would be using your dictionary definition #3, where it says “3. (US, Canad & NZ) maize”.
According to the CIA, then, Finland does not grow maize.
Other than that–okay, I understand that you’re not happy about Finland being in the EU. I’m sorry for you, because it looks like it’s not going to go away.
There are people in the USA who are not happy about being a part of the United States of America, either. Not much they can do about it.
You idiot.
Helmut Kohl has, on numerous occasions, explained his personal drive behind Germany’s pro-European stance. His brother was killed as a soldier in WWII, and because of this Kohl felt that Europe should not endure another war ever again. Seeing the European Union as a solid pact, his backing was behind it 100%. He often had to overcome great resistance within Germany, and within his own party even. Kohl was and is a European avant la lettre, and for all the right reasons. To compare one of the greatest post-WWII politicians to Hitler is an outrage, and a display of absolute stupidity.
Helmut Kohl was no political angel - his farewell from the international and German political stages certainly was an indicator of that. But by comparing him to Hitler, you’re only putting yourself in a bad light, Henry.
Sorry, I did not mean to compare Helmut Kohl to Hitler.
The point is, that he and many that fought for the unity of Europe, did get a much better result than Hitler with his army.
It is just a simple fact, and I tell that the other one is making it without cannons. That can’t be comparing of two people, it is more comparing of two methods, even if I did not mean even that.
And that the firms are now going inside ex-Soviet, my very small firm also, is a policy that is much better than Hitlers, but it does not mean that I am some kind of Adolf.
At this occation, I would also point out that it makes a big difference, how we are doing the integration of Europe.
Not just looking at the small countries like “resources”.
I do not have sites now, but I think that in some countries like Denmark and Finland, the votes against EU, according to polls, is something like 40% +. But this is a much larger question, and it would need to be a different thread for that.
Anyhow, I am sorry that I gave a wrong impression in this question.