Lithuania joins Euro-zone

[Nemo1024]

That's what I call jumping onto the sinking ship at the last moment.

http://rt.com/business/219207-lithuania-join-eurozone-euro/

Lithuania has celebrated the New Year by joining the eurozone. The decision is country’s bid to boost stability despite inflation fears and euro zone debt troubles. However, according to a November poll about 40 percent of the population opposed the move.

Lithuanian Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevicius was withdrew his first 10 euro from Vilnius cash machine right after midnight January 1. The exchange rate is now set at one euro for 3.45 litas, the country’s old currency. Both litas and euros will circulate in the country till June.

One reader comment makes one think, with a minor correction that Germany is not really a free state, so the threads are leading deeper...

And so another piece in the 100-year-old German plan for 'Mitteleuropa' falls into place as Lithuania joins the Friedrich Naumann-inspired, German-dominated currency union designed to secure German domination of continental Europe "for all time". In September 1914 at the outbreak of WWI, the Kaiser's Chancellor, Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg wrote: “Russia must be thrust back as far as possible from Germany's eastern frontier and her domination over non-Russian vassal peoples broken....We must create a central European economic association through common customs treaties to include France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Austria-Hungary, Poland and perhaps Italy, Sweden and Norway.... all its members will be formally equal but in practice will be under German leadership.....” Eastwards expansion and a German-dominated customs union and single currency area has been a stated German foreign policy aim for at least 100 years. It was put on ice by the Cold War. Now, with that conflict over and Germany re-unified, the policy is once more in the process of being realised - it's just that this time it suits the US to support it as they greatly fear a resurgent Russia capable of putting its own national interests before those of the globalised, corporatist elite.

[BitMos]

Dear Nemo, please don't tell me as a Russian fanboy you are afraid of Germany, or it's European annexed possession? It's just fucking pathetic... I explain you why and why the poster you quote is definitively wrong.

1. Corporation can't force you to buy or sell to or from them.
2. 40k and many installations that will not move.
3. Merkel is a Putin (I wanna stay until the end of time).
4. Deutsch Bank has sinned.

And the last one, is that once the kids of Siberia realize that by fighting against who ever, they concretely defend and protect the Motherland... no what ever german (or any national) in a conquer mode has a chance, time proofed, again and again.

But it's so cool for the political elite of Lithunia... they could have accumulated how many shitcoin they wanted (cbr printing), and then dump them to recycle in euro, to finally redump and move to the BTC. What a loot, perfectly executed, who is next to change currency, lot of $ to make .

[CyberSuzy]

Whoever was out of Euro, paid much bigger cost at 2009 crisis.

[BitMos]

you never saw the greek social graph... lol what a noob.

[Nemo1024]

History repeat from last year?
http://www.thecommentator.com/article/4521/latvians_overwhelmingly_oppose_joining_euro_but_will_do_so_anyway_on_jan_1

"Latvia will join the euro on 1 January but nearly 60 percent of Latvians oppose the single currency....Latvians have endured steep wage cuts, rather than Lat devaluation, as the government sought to get the country out of economic crisis while keeping on track to join the euro," it said..

Latvians were not allowed a referendum on joining the euro, since leading politicians were afraid the public would reject it. There is much public anger at what is going on (see picture of European flag being burned in protest at eurozone membership at the top of this report).

It is a matter of public record that the European Union has ignored unfavourable results in referendums on major European issues including in France and the Netherlands.

I would think that these countries, having been in the Soviet Union, would not be jumping into another union and further giving up their sovereignty by giving up their currency. Instead they did just that, and squandered their huge industrial and agricultural heritage of the Soviet era in the process.

He-he, one commentor in that article noticed just that:

lgrundy • a year ago

"Latvia will join the euro on 1 January but nearly 60 percent of Latvians oppose the single currency"
But I bet that's not how the BBC will be reporting things on 1 January. As I write this there is, no doubt, a crew of BBC staff, well into double figures, checking-in to a 5 star hotel in Riga ready to report with delight that another country has joined the euro.
Joyful Latvians will be interviewed on the streets about how much better life in Latvia will become now they have the euro and how this is a sign that Latvia is now 'free' again and how it has finally broken free from the Soviet Union [the irony of swapping Soviet Union rule for European Union rule will be lost on most of them].
Of course, I could be wrong and the BBC may lead on the headline that "the Latvian government has gone against the wishes of the Latvian people and has joined the euro without any democratic support for the change whatsoever" - or, then again, pigs might fly out of my ar**.

As a comparison, Norway stayed out - it had enough of the union with Sweden and a colony status under Denmark before that.

[cryptocoiner]

That's what I call jumping onto the sinking ship at the last moment.

http://rt.com/business/219207-lithuania-join-eurozone-euro/

Lithuania has celebrated the New Year by joining the eurozone. The decision is country’s bid to boost stability despite inflation fears and euro zone debt troubles. However, according to a November poll about 40 percent of the population opposed the move.

Lithuanian Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevicius was withdrew his first 10 euro from Vilnius cash machine right after midnight January 1. The exchange rate is now set at one euro for 3.45 litas, the country’s old currency. Both litas and euros will circulate in the country till June.

One reader comment makes one think, with a minor correction that Germany is not really a free state, so the threads are leading deeper...

And so another piece in the 100-year-old German plan for 'Mitteleuropa' falls into place as Lithuania joins the Friedrich Naumann-inspired, German-dominated currency union designed to secure German domination of continental Europe "for all time". In September 1914 at the outbreak of WWI, the Kaiser's Chancellor, Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg wrote: “Russia must be thrust back as far as possible from Germany's eastern frontier and her domination over non-Russian vassal peoples broken....We must create a central European economic association through common customs treaties to include France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Austria-Hungary, Poland and perhaps Italy, Sweden and Norway.... all its members will be formally equal but in practice will be under German leadership.....” Eastwards expansion and a German-dominated customs union and single currency area has been a stated German foreign policy aim for at least 100 years. It was put on ice by the Cold War. Now, with that conflict over and Germany re-unified, the policy is once more in the process of being realised - it's just that this time it suits the US to support it as they greatly fear a resurgent Russia capable of putting its own national interests before those of the globalised, corporatist elite.

Russia is a ship that sinking right now. Lithuania did right.

[samaricanin]

Better to Euro than to Russia,because Russia is not in good economic position.

Hurry, buy a ticket

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11231618/Eurozone-dodges-triple-dip-recession-but-submerges-in-lost-decade.html


 

[Nemo1024]

I would really like to hear from Latvians on how 2014 was after transition to Euro. Latvian economy was better than Lithuanian. I don't know any Latvians, so the situation there on the ground is a bit vague for me. In Lithuania, though, I know that some people were migrating to Belarus to find work and affordable housing...

[carlosiness]

I would really like to hear from Latvians on how 2014 was after transition to Euro. Latvian economy was better than Lithuanian. I don't know any Latvians, so the situation there on the ground is a bit vague for me. In Lithuania, though, I know that some people were migrating to Belarus to find work and affordable housing...

Yes, Latvians economy was better, but not so many.. but, stop saying your MOTHER RUSSIA propaganda...
Ok, I can say the same about Belarusians, they want to leave they coutry. I have talked recently with many young and elder people. Some of them wanted to have their own business, but after some time they relized that it is too hard to make it on your own..bureaucracy and old soviet model doesn't allow to do that. I don't say that everything is good in Lithuania...Golden rulke: everywhere is good there are not us..

[Nemo1024]

I would really like to hear from Latvians on how 2014 was after transition to Euro. Latvian economy was better than Lithuanian. I don't know any Latvians, so the situation there on the ground is a bit vague for me. In Lithuania, though, I know that some people were migrating to Belarus to find work and affordable housing...

Yes, Latvians economy was better, but not so many.. but, stop saying your MOTHER RUSSIA propaganda...
Ok, I can say the same about Belarusians, they want to leave they coutry. I have talked recently with many young and elder people. Some of them wanted to have their own business, but after some time they relized that it is too hard to make it on your own..bureaucracy and old soviet model doesn't allow to do that. I don't say that everything is good in Lithuania...Golden rulke: everywhere is good there are not us..

You know, I would have agreed with almost everything that you said, if you just managed to stay away from the word "propaganda"... As you have noticed, I was asking a question. Are you Latvian to be qualified to answer it?


French radio station RFI predicts loss of sovereignty for Lithuania. Alas, the French are speaking from their own experience:

http://ria.ru/economy/20150103/1041312020.html?hgj

In the meantime, German Die Speigel predicts Greece exiting Euro zone:
http://ria.ru/world/20150103/1041320125.html

[carlosiness]

I am Lithuanian. Read independand press. I can post in Lithuanian, predicions are different. Sorry, but we don't want to live again in russian occupation, we want to live in eu occupation, i think it's better.. have a good day.

[Nemo1024]

That's fine by be, with a small correction: Soviet "occupation", not Russian. Two different things.
And Lithuania has a long experience of being an independent state, so I can see that you'll manage fine - you just need to draw on that experience. Latvia, on the other hand, experienced independent existence only between 1917 and 1944, and now between 1991 and 2006 (2014), so it's different for them, though not impossible.

[carlosiness]

long experience of being an independent state??? read more history articles, don't draw your history...
We had independace from 1918 02 16 - 1940 06 15, and 1990 03 11 - till now. So explain what do you want to say.

[Snail2]

long experience of being an independent state??? read more history articles, don't draw your history...
We had independace from 1918 02 16 - 1940 06 15, and 1990 03 11 - till now. So explain what do you want to say.

Probably he refers the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Polish-Lithuaninan Commonwealth. So correct me if I'm wrong but you guys really seems to have some long experience of being independent .

[carlosiness]

long experience of being an independent state??? read more history articles, don't draw your history...
We had independace from 1918 02 16 - 1940 06 15, and 1990 03 11 - till now. So explain what do you want to say.

Probably he refers the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Polish-Lithuaninan Commonwealth. So correct me if I'm wrong but you guys really seems to have some long experience of being independent .

this is different story, we can call it 'history'.

[Nemo1024]

long experience of being an independent state??? read more history articles, don't draw your history...
We had independace from 1918 02 16 - 1940 06 15, and 1990 03 11 - till now. So explain what do you want to say.

Probably he refers the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Polish-Lithuaninan Commonwealth. So correct me if I'm wrong but you guys really seems to have some long experience of being independent .

this is different story, we can call it 'history'.

Yes, that's what I was referring to. And no, it's not a different story - history is what makes a country what it is. By the way, the Soviet era is also a "history" now.

By the way, about that history... I wanted to write, why I put Soviet "occupation" in quotation marks. It was a very peculiar occupation, not like any before or after it. During a normal occupation, the occupying force will drain the occupied territory, pulling wealth and resources from it, removing much of the livelihood and usually leaving one type of production, so that the occupied territory would not be able to survive on its own should it try to break free. (Hint: EU strategy in Greece and the Baltic states )

The opposite was happening during the Soviet era. Soviet Union invested a lot of money and resources into building up Baltic industry and agriculture. The living standard in the Baltics was much higher than in Russia. Moscow was considered to be the best supplied city in USSR, but when I first visited Riga and Vilnius in mid-80s, I was awe-struck at the abundance and the quality of life. It felt like having travelled abroad.

Yes, there were dark sides too, like the forced relocations of people that Gzhugashvili was so fond of. Many Lithuanians, Latvians were sent to Russia and other republics. But the movement the other way from Russia was not a happy migration either. People were told to pack and be ready to move in 48 hours, and didn't have any say in their fate, being forced to move to a colder and sour climate of the Baltics.

The family that I know in Lithuania came there much earlier, in the 1700s escaping the religious persecution of Peter the Great after the church reform in Russia. They are "old faithers", who came to Lithuania when it was much more tolerant, compared to today. Two interesting observations. They were forced to change their surname from Russian-style "-ov" to Lithuanian style "-ovajte" in the beginning of 1900s. And the woman that is almost like an aunt to me, told me that when when was finishing an institute, she had top marks in all subjects, aiming for "red diploma". She didn't get it - the examiner in Lithuanian language gave her "4", telling her outright that a Russian cannot get a top-mark in Lithuanian (never mind that the family lived in Lithuania for 250 years and that she speaks Lithuanian better than most, and that it's her Russian that actually is heavily-accented).

[carlosiness]

Yes, I heard from my parents that then there was different life than Russia, maybe better due to the abundance of goods and food.. But it was...

But the movement the other way from Russia was not a happy migration either.

- My grandmother and her mother with father were also happy in 'not cold' Siberia... Russians wanted to kill our language, that's why they brought people here and natives to Siberia.

...when it was much more tolerant

- read more mass media from russia...yes, there are nasty communicating people, but i could say the same with natives russians, they love to swear in public.. but we love normal russians, love your literarure classics..

She didn't get it - the examiner in Lithuanian language gave her "4", telling her outright that a Russian cannot get a top-mark in Lithuanian (never mind that the family lived in Lithuania for 250 years and that she speaks Lithuanian better than most, and that it's her Russian that actually is heavily-accented).

- It could be in any state, with any lecturer.. but who knows, maybe your ant hyperbolized a bit this situation..

btw, my grandfather was russian, from Chelyabinsk (as i remember, I hadn't seem him)..
peace.

[Nemo1024]

btw, my grandfather was russian, from Chelyabinsk (as i remember, I hadn't seem him)..
peace.

I think we are mostly on the same wavelength, then. Just want to make a certain amendment to the following quote:

But the movement the other way from Russia was not a happy migration either.

- My grandmother and her mother with father were also happy in 'not cold' Siberia... Russians wanted to kill our language, that's why they brought people here and natives to Siberia.

Russian people, as such, didn't want to kill Lithuanian, or any other language, but the Soviet leadership (which wasn't the same as leadership of Russia, RSFSR, as it was known back then) had this idea that for a better control over USSR, the population had to be more or less homogeneous. The uniform spreading of suffering, which also applied to Russians, so to say. 
Interestingly, both during the days of the Russian Empire, and within RSFSR local languages were preserved, and many of the northern and eastern minorities got new written forms of their languages courtesy Russian linguists, so that those people could keep their cultures alive.

[Balthazar]

Oh common, the same language tales again... Chechen Republic, Republics of Dagestan, Tatarstan or Karelia for example - many locals there can't speak even a single word in Russian, and they have no problem with that. But, of course, they will get some expected communication issues in case of migration into other region.

[arbitrage001]

I am Lithuanian. Read independand press. I can post in Lithuanian, predicions are different. Sorry, but we don't want to live again in russian occupation, we want to live in eu occupation, i think it's better.. have a good day.

Joining EU sounds like a good reason to be invaded by Russia judging by recent events.