The whole reason for the existence of *these EU laws* is so that we can get rid of legislating lots of redundant secondary legislation and get on with implementing policies that matter.

Sorry, my mistake. FTFM.

Yes, but not equivalent in scale. The actual EU budget is tiny compared to the US federal government.

The interest rates were much lower in the Eurozone. So when the Greeks joined, not only were people able to afford more big-ticket items, even the government was allowed more room to run a big deficit. So there was a temporary credit-fueled boom, followed by a painful bust.

We live with regulations now because once a point in time, somebody recognized the existing system back then needed rules to optimize trade, improve safety, minimize waste, etc. Sometimes we make mistakes, and that we over regulate, or not regulate in the right way. Sometimes these are innocent mistakes, and sometimes it is due to lobbying efforts by vested interest. But in most case, they can be corrected.

The right way to deal with this is for engagement. Not using it as an excuse to throw the baby out of with the bathwater. In fact, if the UK did leave the EU, we would need to adhere to the same regulations in order to sell our stuff to Europe, while having no influence over the drafting of these rules. Do we really want to be such a situation?

Not that I don't agree with the mandate for EU reform. As it stands the way the EU, and especially the EC works it a mystery to most people. Although not an Eurosceptic myself, I do admit that it is useful to have a sceptical counterbalance in the European political landscape, in order to drive us to make the EU institutions that we already have, better.

Unfortunately, almost all of the Eurosceptic parties are increasingly moving towards xenophobic and populist arguments. You can see that from the type of political advertising that the UKIP has been doing here in Britain, and it is worse for the respective parties in the Netherlands and in France.

Actually, your examples gave you up. The regulations governing the size and specification of produce (e.g. bananas) and other products/services is one of the core EC competencies. Do you really want to have 27 different standards and regulation on products in your economic area? The whole reason for the existence of the EU is so that we can get rid of legislating lots of redundant secondary legislation and get on with implementing policies that matter.

In fact, most of the people that are against EU legislation don't really know what the majority of EU legislation is about. Most of it is to facilitate trade of goods (e.g. on product standards) and services (e.g. on worker rights), so that we have a equal playing field across the free-trade area.

The EU != the European Court of Human Rights, which seem to be the main target of the Daily Mail in the past decade or so.

The problem is that the Euro is a monetary union without a proper fiscal (and by-proxy political) union. The US has a strong central government and can fix these imbalances by, amongst other things, spending federal dollars in the states with weaker economies. The Euro does not have a proper mechanism to do this and you can see the stronger export economies reaping the rewards of Euro membership (looking at you Germany). A lot of big-ticket items (such as German cars and second homes) were bought on cheap credit due when the southern economies joining the Euro.

I've never been threatened with a call-out charge by Virgin Media (but their billing practises it awful, such as overbilling people with old plans and being anal retentative when questioned). However, BT threatened me with a call-out charge once on a problem with my PSTN (ie. Plain Ole Telephone) service. I insisted they sent out an engineer and in the end it turned out to be a problem with the line card my line was connected to at the exchange. So, yes, in the end they fixed it and, no, I didn't get charged.

Like how it was immediately obvious to you that one couldn't get a brand-new iphone with anything other than iOS 7? And that turned out not to be true as I pointed out there are still places selling the 3GS?

Common, you're grasping at straws here. Clearly this phrase was meant to state the phone released, not phone available for sale.

BTW, you can still find places that sell the 3GS brand-new-in-box, so no, you can also buy new iOS devices that doesn't support the latest iOS version.

That phone was not "found coming out brand-new with 2.2/2.3 installed" still. It came out in 2011. You may be able to buy it from a retailer new, but they are just selling old stock. EOD. Stop twisting GP's words.

Info from GSMArena -

LG Optimus Black P970
Announced 2011, January
Status Available. Released 2011, May

You're talking about a 3 year old phone that retailers are still trying to clear old stock of.

Exactly! just like how we bailed out the banks... /facepalm

What if the private entity is the only choice for the people (e.g. a monopoly)? What difference does it make that the private entity, or the government is doing the actual censoring?

Baidu has an almost non-existent marketshare outside of China, so basically whatever they do don't affect the US population much.

However, let's suppose it was Google (with it's marketshare in controlling access to information) censoring result due to political reasons - lets say they blacklisted "Tea Party" or "Gay Marriage" from their searches. Ok, you say Google isn't a monopoly, so what about Microsoft in the late 90s. What if they implemented a filter in IE that stopped those words from being displayed for the same reasons.

Yes, it may not be a first amendment issue, but it is a valid issue nevertheless. Just because the censorship is not being done by Government, doesn't make it right. If you know anything about tort law, you would know about the various duties of care an organization might have towards not only their customers, but also the public.

Maybe I should have added, in the US.

As big part of Independence was to reject corporations like EIC and the Hudson Bay Company which operated private armies sanctioned by the host nation (such as the British or the Dutch).