Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2015 August 17

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August 17

European Union, the United Nations and the Euro

I thought that the European Union is just like the United Nations. The European Union is to Europe what the United Nations is to the world. But then the European Union had one single currency, the euro. If the European Union is just like the United Nations, then why does it have one single currency?

Desklin (talk) 04:03, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

You might want to read our articles on the United Nations and the European Union. In short, the UN was formed as an agreement among its nations to talk things out before starting another world war, while the EU was started to make Europe like a super-nation with shared citizenship, currency, and even some laws. Kinda like the United States, but from the ground up (instead of the top down), and with folks on both sides cringing at the comparison. Some member states of the EU go with a dual-currency deal. Britain, for example, uses both the pound and the euro. Ian.thomson (talk) 04:26, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

I beg to differ. We in the UK do not use the Euro. We use only pounds. It was recently posted that we could use Euros in payphones, but I have never seen that. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (もしもし！) 06:23, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Ha, where on Earth did you get the idea that Britain is dual currency?! The various currencies used within the EU are not interchangable. In those countries not in the Eurozone, the Euro is not legal tender, just as the pound would not be legal tender in the Eurozone. Also, I wouldn't say the EU was started with the explicit aim of a "super-nation with shared citizenship", this has never been the aim of the EU. It forms an economic and legal framework for close cooperation. It is not some kind of Farage nightmare Orwellian superstate. Fgf10 (talk) 06:44, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Piling on, if you try to pay for something in Britain (or Denmark, or Bulgaria, or Sweden, or Poland, or Hungary, or any of the other EU members which aren't in the Eurozone) using Euros, you're likely to get the same reaction as if you try to pay in the US with Mexican Pesos. Despite Daily Mail Faragist fantasies, being part of a free trade area with coordination of policy in some areas doesn't mean being part of a unitary superstate. ‑ iridescent 08:25, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

In Western Europe they don't want foreign currency but I've heard in the poorer countries some businesses will take Euros (hotels (or just pricy ones?) even quote tourists in Euros and have to be asked for the price in Bulgarian thingys (the official name of the Bulgarian currency) though maybe that's just to give Western-looking people a bad rate. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 12:49, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

In the touristy areas of Central America and the Carribean, shops also list prices in U.S. Dollars, sometimes alongside the local currency, and sometimes without it. Shopkeepers also happily accept U.S. Dollars, though I'm pretty sure you get a better exchange rate at banks than at said shops. --Jayron32 21:44, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

• In legal terms, the European Union is not like the United Nations, or like anything else. It's legally defined a sui generis organization, which means "of its own kind". Smurrayinchester 08:36, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

(As to your second point, see optimum currency area. It's currently unclear as to whether the Eurozone is an optimum currency area, but the world as a whole certainly is not.) Smurrayinchester 11:59, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

"Standardization" of money exchange values goes back many years (pre-Roman Empire) - generally based on set amounts of precious metals in specie. Wars tend, alas, to make the best laid plans of mice and bankers go aglee. Collect (talk) 11:39, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

• If we get down to it, and are forced to categorize the EU (noting, as above, that it is a sui generis organization), then it lies somewhere between the U.S. and United Nations in terms of organization. That is, in the U.S., the individual states retain sovereignty on only a small number of issues, mostly domestic issues regarding education, crime and punishment, and infrastructure, while the U.S. Federal government maintains sovereignty on issues related to foreign affairs and interstate matters. The U.N., by contrast, has no sovereign powers of its own, the member states retain all of their sovereign powers. The EU is a bit of a hybrid: member states have agreed to relinquish some sovereign powers over some issues (and it varies alot depending on which "sovereign right" we're talking about, from customs, to currency, to economic regulations) but each member state still retains it's own ultimate sovereignty, and deals with other nations as an independent foreign power; as well as retaining it's own sovereignty over most purely domestic issues. --Jayron32 15:08, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

See also our article on Federal Europe, which is the what the EU should be working towards according to some member states, and what the EU should avoid becoming according to others. The debate continues.... Alansplodge (talk) 17:22, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

The EU is a Regional organization in terms of the UN. I recommend Neil MacCormick's discussion in Questioning Sovereignty: Law, State, and Nation in the European Commonwealth for a thoughtful exploration of the EU's legal order. UN organs were ceded, essentially did acquire "sovereign" (if you want to call it that) power - over war & peace, over treaties - and this looks to be permanent. So the OP's comparison to the EU members' cession of some sovereignty has some validity. As others note, the Eurozone is only a part of the EU, 19 of the 28 states who have ceded (possibly temporarily) a more major part of their sovereign powers, probably more than most had thought.John Z (talk) 04:28, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Stock exchange

Do stock exchanges have staff traders anymore? A lot of pictures nowadays just show a few people sitting at a computer. Not lots of people in one room like in the 60s. 94.14.230.255 (talk) 10:47, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Some are more electronic than others (the New York Stock Exchange at least still has a few floor traders – the German stock exchange has a quiet room in Frankfurt with a few computer screens) but I don't think any significant exchange still has many. Open outcry has its uses in dealing with large, high-value trades, but computers are more practical for most cases. Smurrayinchester 11:33, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Exchange traders work for the member companies of the exchange, not the exchange itself. Let's put this in historical context. Before computerized trading, the exchange floor was the physical place where exchange members made trades. The member companies had traders whose job it was to execute the trades on behalf of their employer. Before electronic communication, traders would walk onto the floor when they were dispatched from their company with their instructions. Once the telegraph was established, traders stayed on the floor and the trading office wired instructions to the floor. Telegraphs were replaced with telephones once this became feasible. Now, with computer networking, there's little reason to have humans transact trades face-to-face. It makes more sense to keep the traders at the company offices and have them trade using the company's computers. --108.38.204.15 (talk) 19:54, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Average Jewish vs. German wealth (or lack thereof)

How well-off were the average Jewish people back then in the 30s, and how well-off were German people?--Yppieyei (talk) 21:08, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

If you only mean in Germany, which column do German Jewish people go under? If you mean everywhere, which standard currency and cost of living do we use? InedibleHulk (talk) 21:30, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

in the 1930's as now, there were Jewish people living in many parts of the world, under many different economic circumstances. I doubt that data exists which could usefully answer your question. If you are asking about Jewish people in Germany, again I'm not sure that data exists, though the stereotype put about by antisemites that Jews were all wealthy is demonstrably false. And they certainly suffered economically (as well as in other more obvious ways) as a result of the Nazi policies - businesses were taken over without compensation, or simply destroyed through mob action. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:32, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

That's where the cost of living comes in. Even discounting suddenly losing everything, given two equal sacks of gold, the Jew who has to bribe the law on top of the daily bills will be less well-off than the privileged Germans. Judging wealth by assets and liabilites (instead of just income), and investments by their returns (instead of their initial size), the German Jews certainly lost that fiscal decade. That's not to say they didn't also lose by the other yardstick. The exact score will stay unknown, because filing cabinets make terrible armour, and paper is flammable. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:52, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

I mean Jewish people in Germany and ethnic German living in Germany. And not in the 30s, but more exactly 1933, when Hitler came into power. Was the stereotype completely false and were both groups 1:1? Couldn't it be that Jewish people were even poorer, since prejudice against them existed before 1933 too? Or couldn't it be that they were more urban, and consequentially wealthier?--Yppieyei (talk) 22:01, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Again, without bank statements and tax records with clearly Jewish-sounding names attached, it's nearly impossible to say. But in any group, there will always be far more poor than rich, and Jews were a minority group. So if you were to take a stroll around Germany that year, your average day would see more poor non-Jews.

In some places, you'd find clusters of Jews who were wealthier than entire towns of non-Jews, but then you'd find non-Jew clusters who were even wealthier. That the wealthiest of the non-Jews' money was worth more than the wealthiest Jews' seems fairly evident by the dominance. Charisma and a preexisting imaginary enemy only go so far in shaping a nation's loyalty. For everything else, there's MasterCard (or the equivalent). InedibleHulk (talk) 22:30, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

But being Nazi Germany one period which was studied in detail by historians, I am pretty sure bank statements and tax records could exist and had been analyzed. Germany also cared to register who was Jewish and who not, so you don't need to guess anything based on "Jewish-sounding names attached." Knowing how wealthy Jewish people were is also important to determine how much was stolen from them.--Yppieyei (talk) 22:50, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

It certainly isn't an obscure period, but even the brightest historians can't unburn things. The Stasi Records Agency apparently has about 33 million pages left to unshred, and some things will be clearer then. But will we ever restore enough to answer this question with exact numbers? 100% unlikely. There are known knowns, and everything else is useless. Even at the time, as now, many kept their money hidden, either through complex accounting magic or in a couch.

It seems very unlikely to directly correlate, but if you want, you could convert 78.4 billion marks since 1965 into 1933 marks to find out what was stolen. They had to find that number somewhere, but the sort of math for that is way beyond me. InedibleHulk (talk) 23:39, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

For an example of how quickly history changes, on May 15, 2014, there was reportedly $40,000 in that New York couch. On May 14, there was reportedly $41,000. One day, they all get $1,000 back, the next they each do. InedibleHulk (talk) 23:46, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Regarding "Germany also cared to register who was Jewish and who not" that is debatable - they certainly attempted to do so, but it is a matter of historical record that their methods were arbitrary, flawed, and open to corruption. Not that there could ever be a method of determining "Jewishness" that wasn't arbitrary. Their ideology was based on a false premise, and even if one to ignore the monumental evilness of the project it was an exercise in gross stupidity. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:55, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Speaking of evil projects and gross stupidity, I'd confused the Stasi with the Sicherheitsdienst above. Part of me knew that seemed weird, but had forgotten. The Bundesnachrichtendienst is keeping the spirit alive. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:11, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Even under the Nazis, Germany does not seem to have collected reliable statistics on wealth by religious group or ethnicity. So we can't offer sourced figures in response to your question. However, historically, Jews in Europe were often banned from owning land. So they were never able to accumulate land-based wealth the way the Christian nobility could. On the other hand, before modern times, Christians were banned from collecting interest. With many other career options closed to them, Jews found a niche in finance. They were also allowed, at times, to practice other commercial trades. Also, in order to form religious communities, they tended to concentrate in urban centers, where commercial opportunities were also concentrated. Almost certainly, most German Jews had modest incomes as clerical workers or owners of small businesses. However, a very visible minority of German Jews had lucrative careers in banking and other areas of finance. Christian Germans may have had experiences owing money to Jewish bankers and other lenders. So, even though a majority of German Jews probably had modest incomes, it was possible for the Nazis to point to a visibly wealthy Jewish minority and use them to mobilize non-Jewish resentment toward all Jews. Marco polo (talk) 15:26, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

But when was the ban for Christians from collecting interest lifted? I see it often mentioned as an argument (from both anti-semitic and non-anti-semitic sources). Had that still a real effect on Jewish people living in Germany during the XIX and XX century? That is, besides being the source of a stereotype about Jewish people. --Yppieyei (talk) 19:44, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

According to usury, when rates dropped huge in the 16th Century, many Catholics decided "Rules, schmules". In 1745, it was still uncool, according to the Pope, but was still popular in 1891, according to the Pope. By 1933, "God is dead", but the Pope was still trying to control the economy. By 1988, das is euer Gott, but in 1999, the Pope still says down with interest!

Nothing was officially lifted, as far as I can see. Just stopped mattering. InedibleHulk (talk) 20:39, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

In answer to the actual question asked, the general consensus is that German Jewry was well integrated; Jews had (obviously) fought in the First World War, and during the Franco-Prussian War, with a widespread image of them celebrating the Day of Atonement [see] and [this]. German soldiers, in general, were first able to identify Jews as a distinct social group on the invasion of Poland. I draw the conclusion that German Jews were, by-and-large, identifiable by their surnames and, assuming that they practiced their religion, by their religious observances. At the end of the First World War, with a collapsed economy, they would have been in the same boat as everyone else. There may have been a concentration in the professions; there was, for example, in neighbouring Poland a distinct and disproportionate preponderance of Jewish students. With a collapsed economy, however, that would have been a disadvantage; it would have been more useful to be a farmer.

Michael Burleigh, in the book The Third Reich: A New History, writes about the aryanisation of German businesses: 'In 1933 there were about one hundred thousand Jewish concerns in Germany, the majority being middling or small enterprises, with another fifty thousand one-man businesses, and a further thousand one-man workshops . By April 1938, some 60 per cent had passed into other hands, leaving about forty thousand firms still in existence. Broadly speaking, department stores, major industrial concerns and merchant banks enjoyed a greater respite than small businesses, even though in the case of department stores we are dealing with a special hate-object of small business supporters of the Nazi movement. Hitler himself approved a consolidation loan to the Jewish brothers Tietz, owners of the stores soon to become Hertie AG. This paradoxical disparity between the treatment of large and small enterprises was because the unemployment consequences were especially grave when when a big firm closed, but also because the anti-capitalism of SA hooligans focussed more easily on small shops than boardrooms. Thus M.M. Warburg, the Hamburg-based merchant bank, was not 'aryanised' until 1938, long after many small Jewish businessmen had been ruined or had emigated.' (Chapter 4, Conflicting Signs). 185.16.160.38 (talk) 09:29, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

References

The aryanisation of German businesses was in retaliation for wealthy Jewish bankers declaring war on Germany just after adolf hitter took power. This was well before aryanisation began. See the March 24 1933 issue of the daily express. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hitchhiker1 (talk • contribs) 11:36, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

That sounds like a Human Smoke version of history rather than any accepted view; in 1933/ 1934 the Nazis were concentrating on consolidating their power base, arresting Communists, Socialists, and Trade Unionists (see the article on Dachau). To the extent that Jews were targetted at this stage it was because of Hitler's [correct spelling] belief in Jewish Bolshevism, which he had already expounded at turgid length in Mein Kampf. 185.16.160.38 (talk) 09:19, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

It's amazing how antisemites flipflop between Jews being the ultimate moneylovers and the ultimate moneyhaters. They ought to get their story straight. Maybe, just maybe, some Jews love money and some Jews hate it and most sit somewhere in between, much like the rest of the world's population. --Dweller (talk) 09:24, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

John, ch. 4, v. 9. 185.16.160.38 (talk) 10:58, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

I have no idea what the laws of kashrut have to do with this discussion. --Dweller (talk) 11:46, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

If Jewish Bolshevism wasn't fact and just simply belief, how do you explain that Leon Trotsky was Jewish?a also, didn't Lenin himself, the top dog of the Bolsheviks, have some Jewish ancestry? Not only that, Karl Marx too was Jewish. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hitchhiker1 (talk • contribs) 11:38, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

No-one has suggested in this thread that there were or were not a number of prominent individuals who Jewish in the Bolshevik movement. No doubt there were lots of Christians, too. And people with beards. And fat people. This thread is getting increasingly bizarre. --Dweller (talk) 11:46, 21 August 2015 (UTC)