XBOX 360 2603

This is how the system worked in all European capitalist countries (except in Belgium) after WW2. The limits were set at how much of the local currency you were allowed to exchange legally. If you had something you could export, or other access to foreign capital, you could buy to your heart's content. It was done so deliberatly to get the countries to export stuff again; and the US accepted it as long as the Marshall plan was in effect (i.e. until 1961).

This is becoming ancient history now. All EU currencies have been freely tradable since 1976, or at most 5 years after the country in question joined the EU. That leaves Norway, Switzerland, Iceland and some principalities; all of which have currencies that regularly get inflated because some capitalist somewhere tries to opt out from some currency fluctuation in the major currencies. That would never happen if they were restricted in any major way.

So, Europe has formed the only realistic alternative to the US dollar in terms of international trade. I a sense this, and the fact that Poland has (re)joined the Allies, let us finally let WW2 and the aftermath be over and done with.

After 1992 this has to be an upstream issue; that is when the internal market went live. Except for some interesting handling of VAT on imports that aren't sold directly in the state it was brought into it is all straight a straight sell, from Faro to Erare, Belfast to Agia Napa. The VAT complexity I mentioned also completely pales compared to the US tax regime.

GSM phones work everywhere but the US. The only countries I know that have limitations against a stock GSM 900 phone are the US, Canada and the Evil Axis. Go buy Bill Gates a white cat and join in!

Here an euroceptic have to admit the finest job the EU has done, silently and without much fuzz. They have built a regime of standards that rival anything else on the planet, and have managed to get Germans, Italians and French to have alike specifications from everything from steel to gsm phones. And it happened without a trade war, and only some minor fuzz about the shapes of cucumbers.

So, indeed, a GSM phone is a GSM phone.

-- mrr