oh I don't deny it happens. My contempt for the article is its ridiculous conspiratorial tone.

Well, I wouldn't wipe my arse with the Graniuad personally, but using sensationalsm to get people to read a story about nerds doing data analysis is the sort of thing every newspaper does.

Right wing nut jobs the world over coming together to influence elections. It's not about the data ffs.

Aye no biggie.

Thought for sure bitterballs would have something to say about the outside influence on the elections, sovereignty and all that bollocks.

kremlin funded hacking groups getting access to campaign emails of the side which putin wants to lose and releasing them through wikileaks is an example of inappropriate outside influence

political groups hiring some yanks to do marketing = not imo

It would depend how many drachmas you would have to pay for things compared to how many euros now.

"Euro" prices aren't an actual thing. Prices aren't the same in Luxembourg and Montenegro any more than they are in Zimbabwe and the USA, nor any more than they are in County Durham and London nor even than they are in Elche and Madrid. It's true that some governments and companies have taken the change as an opportunity for unjustified increases but those are pretty much the same people who are in trouble now. For example Czech and Slovak prices have kept rough pace since Slovakia joined the Euro in 2009 and Czech Rep kept the crown.

The banks "lost" the money by lending it to Greece ... at least if they aren't willing to pay it back.

As we both know the point of currency sovereignity is that you can print your own currency. They'd print (or digitally create blah blah blah) drachmas, a lot of them, devaluing the currency to the point where they could offer attractive deals to tourists et al.

They can't do this now. Because they are in the euro. The Germans are paying them for a service, they aren't doing it out of the goodness of their little teutonic hearts. If Greece leaves it will really hurt Germany.

What surprises me is that the Greeks didn't tell the EU to f*** off long ago and take their austerity with them. Certainly enough people in the UK saw that ****show and thought to themselves "I never want that to be us".

Sure joining the euro was a mistake for some countries. Where it's difficult to increase taxes or cut spending or move wages down, printing money is often the only thing that is politically feasible. The question is why such countries ever joined the euro and signed up for the stability pact which prevents this.

Also plenty of other countries are paying for the bailout. The Slovak government fell over the issue in 2011 after the PM went back on an election promise not to send money to Greece and their coalition partners refused to go back on their own promise (that PM's party got less than 7000 votes nationwide in the last elections).

You can print money, also traditionally you can lower interest rates as a way of moving your currency.

The elephant in the room of the modern economy is how every major economy has their IR policy set to emergency emergency we are totally ****ed levels.

Which obviously removes the a huge policy lever of controlling your own monetary policy.

If Greece did control its own monetary policy, it would be impossible for it to move IRs much lower than the EU central bank has set them already.

The issue now comes weighted towards Germany, which is receiving the same emergency monetary adrenaline shots that the PIGS are receiving.

Its probably not economically healthy.

EU chief negotiator in the Dail now for talks with everyone on brexit. Showing great support for the Irish people. Lot of soundbites but at least he's here.

May nowhere to be seen or heard. Why anyone would want to make deals with her is beyond me btw, already made a unilateral decision to mess with a deal between UK and Ireland to the detriment of everyone here.

And we've yet to be shown any benefits of leaving (apart from funding the NHS by another £350m pw), like nobody gives a ****.

Leave federal Europe! Join up with fascist USA hooray! She and her party will get what they deserve, ****s.

Definite yes to leave federal Europe, the sooner the better.

The Greeks would be able to do a ton of QE though to get their wages/benefits in real terms down to levels comparable to economies with similar levels of productivity.

Nobody believes you and nobody fought the brexit campaign on this fantasy of yours.

Anti immigration small minded little englanders, one and all - even the stupid Welsh ****s.

Looks like Ireland as a whole will be seriously ****ed over by brexit with the north getting the very worst of it. You dgaf, your dear leader feels the same.

Disgusts me.

Nobidy believes me? What on earth are you talking about?

Is English your first language? You are not being clear.

No they don't believe your excuse about wanting away from federal Europe. Made up bollocks to make yourself feel good. Little england, anti immigration fund our nhs £350m pw sucker.

And it's 'nobody' not 'nobidy'.

Oh OK, still stuck in stage 2.

Fair enough, hope you are OK soon.

Apart from getting away from the ever growing federalism in the EU (whatever to **** that is, won't benefit you and me personally) would you like to point out just 5 more benefits of leaving?

Real benefits only please.

His point is that the specific kind of Brexit (whether independence or "fax democracy") wasn't specified in the terms of the referendum.

Fair enough, but that's why an election is being fought on the issue now.

As for the rest, well it's fair comment that most people on our side of the Irish Sea don't give a stuff what happens on the other side - I wouldn't expect people in Ireland to cast votes for our benefit either.

That's the main one I care about tbh

I like us making own trade deals too, and getting away from the protectionism implicit in the EU club.

We can leave the EU behind in the next 5-10 years hopefully (if it lasts that long)

1. Immigration
2. Immigration
3. Immigration
4. Immigration
5. Immigration

What were the benefits for Ireland in leaving the UK? (temporarily leaving aside the question of the 6 counties).

Sure - we can argue about economics, whether the UK would have more quickly brought liberal policies in areas like divorce and abortion law, whether Ireland can market it's tourism better as an independent country than as an appendage of the UK etc but that would be missing the main issue - which is that British isn't your nationality.

Bit more problematic when the leaders of the country share the same opinion concerning people this side of the sea.

Lots of benefits but this isn't about Irish reunification.

Born and bred in NI, can claim to be British if I like. What's your point?

No, I mean why was it good for the 26 counties to leave the UK? (If you want to answer why it would have been good for 32 counties all to leave rather than all to stay you can do that one instead, I don't want to sidetrack it into a discussion of the 6 counties and the internal border etc.).

If your answer is really going to be "real" concrete stuff like "I like better the divorce law the Irish came up with on our own." then I think you're missing the point.

From my simple pov this is what I see....

England we want our sovereignty back! Ok we'll have a referendum nps.

Scotland we want our sovereignty back! Now now, not just yet with the referendum, don't want to mess with brexit discussions.

Ireland we want our sovereignty back! Shush we aren't even going to discuss that!

Now after article 50 everyone is just treated like mushrooms....left in the dark and fed ****.

Well that's my point. You see the parallels with Irish people wanting independence from the UK but you have a different opinion in the two cases.