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With the above in mind, I am not sure I want to us to emulate silicon valley and their methods. And as far as I know europe has some of the best universities in the world and I think a lot of R&D and raw science is done in the EU, perhaps we're not as good at monetizing it as the americans are. I think our biggest problems is the austerity wrongthink that dominates EU economic thinking and our refusal to break rules and more blatantly just do stuff that favours our own interests like China and the US does. The EU needs to think more about domestic demand, stimulus and energy security than trying to keep breathing life into the german export model. A big problem is that the EU is too fragmented and like herding cats, at a time when some quick and decisive action is needed. Instead we got people raving about debt and putting inflation reduction as priority #1 when we need to stimulate the economy and mandate raising of wages instead to keep up with inflation, at least for a time. Having a new normal of 5-6% inflation isn't like it would be the end of the world either if wages can somewhat keep up. Of course the EU lacks the authority to do that, nevermind the desire to do so.
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Oct 20, 2023 07:53
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The exogenous shock from Ukraine war to European economy was massive and I don't think there could have been any realistic way to shield from it the way European energy infra was structured in 2000's. And looking at American and Chinese relations at the moment, it could very well be that we're heading for another shock regarding Chinese markets.... It really is a lovely situation and I'm becoming more and more sceptical about how sane it is to build our economy with the idea that neoliberal global world order will continue on trucking. The way I see it, EU has two safe options here: Either tie ourselves to US even more (push through the free trade agreement etc.) and continue with free trade approach. But that has a large possibility of becoming more and more subservient to American interests and them being more powerful economy, it means that we'd have to construct our market economy on their terms, not on European terms. Or EU goes full on protectionistic. And while 'fortress Europa' approach might become easier and easier to sell to population as world goes to poo poo, it does have some more......er....fash-like risks.......
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Oct 20, 2023 08:11
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His Divine Shadow posted:You can use archive.ph I think they're overcomplicating it. It's really just two of them. Aging population and lack of IRA-equivalent. The US has more immigration, more births and just more state induced demand in the economy at the federal level. The EU meanwhile is stagnating, with a handful of member states being the exception due to unique circumstances (such as the EU battery consortium) or national policies. If the EU opened its borders again it would facilitate more growth and more room for local economies to boom. If the EU at the central level pushed anything even close to the IRA, industries everywhere on the continent would boon. The current overreliance on private investment mostly just acts as a funnel for EU-savings to be invested in US finance and tech, which itself is following US federal and state investments.
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Oct 20, 2023 08:27
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Let's also not forget that the lion's share of American growth is pocketed by a very small group of obscenely rich multi-billionaires and that the US's "nimble" economic model caused at least two massive global economic crises in the span of a century. I'm not saying this to elevate the EU's economic model, which is still lovely. I'm just saying that "emulate America" is pretty bad advice.
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Oct 20, 2023 20:25
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Bright Bart posted:The flaw with the West is that it's not able to project its stengths. Why are you so surprised? Anyone who tries to promote the local economy is denounced as fascist, cf. Glah a couple of posts up. Europeans can't project strength because they're embarrassed by the very idea of strength. An overwhelming majority of members of this board are politically far-left Westerners who hate the very ground they walk on with every fiber of their beings. It is axiomatic to them that all of Western civilization is irredeemably tainted by colonialism and slavery, which is held to be uniquely evil and unlike any of the empire-conquering and slave-trading perpetrated everywhere else in the world in the centuries before and since, and Europe must be eternally punished with an infinite blood debt that can never be repaid. Even European countries which never had overseas colonies are guilty by association because they didn't exist in complete autarky and total inbred isolation from a global economy which included colonies (search the web for "Swiss imperialism" sometime). These people don't promote Europe's strengths because they feel that Europe shouldn't be strong. Many of the EU's own advocates don't value European civilization on its own merits, they more see the cross-border ever-closer homogenizing EU bureaucracy as a tool to erase all those horrible dirty nations on the road to revolutionary Year Zero, when the very concept of Europe itself ceases to exist. European progressives are actively hostile to the melting-pot ideal of American society and stubbornly refuse to contemplate integrating incoming populations to a European identity - "multiculturalism" amounts to "bring all your ancient grudges over to us and you can fight them out on a new backdrop". The only answer anyone on this thread has to economic problems is "open borders and import a new population to replace our current one". When the only "strengths" you value are passive, vacant ones like "unlimited immigration" then you have no strengths. The suicide cult of historic self-loathing and liberal guilt that swept over Europe over the last few decades has created this situation. If Europe is dying and can't project its strengths and will soon be dismembered by the USA, Russia and China, then congratulations guys - you won! Charoclere fucked around with this message at 20:41 on Oct 20, 2023 |
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Oct 20, 2023 20:37
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Been a while since I read a screed on white guilt, points for novelty also: lol
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Oct 20, 2023 20:40
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Pope Hilarius II posted:Let's also not forget that the lion's share of American growth is pocketed by a very small group of obscenely rich multi-billionaires and that the US's "nimble" economic model caused at least two massive global economic crises in the span of a century. Charoclere posted:Why are you so surprised? Anyone who tries to promote the local economy is denounced as fascist, cf. Glah a couple of posts up. Europeans can't project strength because they're embarrassed by the very idea of strength. In any case, have you read this thread? The closest thing to a consensus in this thread is that the EU should strengthen itself, so it can act as an independent and positive force in the world, through pan-European investment and strategic planning that makes the common European see it as a worthwhile endeavor. Not just as an ideal, but as an actual day-to-day positive presence in their lives.
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Oct 20, 2023 21:00
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Charoclere posted:Why are you so surprised? Anyone who tries to promote the local economy is denounced as fascist, cf. Glah a couple of posts up. Europeans can't project strength because they're embarrassed by the very idea of strength. Well personally I'd like to see EU strengthen itself, move towards more protectionistic approach and promote local economy with increased spending and letting go of strict austerity but I don't think I'm denouncing myself as fascist so dunno what you mean here? Just because I see risks in it, doesn't mean it shouldn't be attempted. Like I said, it is one of the "safe" options compared to current strategy where supply chains and economy is tied to things like Asian markets whose stability is totally outside of EU's hands. Only thing we can hope is that US and China don't start really throwing their weight around. But what is clear is that for EU to be able to do those things, become a protectionistic block, it positions itself against the European nation states. You can't be a block if nations states are free to pursue their own policies trade-wise and foreign relations -wise. You can't run an effective block without that homogenizing border erasing EU bureaucracy. So it doesn't really make much sense to wish for Europe to become more willing to project strength while at the same time lament the fate of European nation states. It really is either or. Either we have a strong EU becoming a real global player. Or we continue as we are with European nation states co-operating when their interests happen to coincide and bicker when not within the framework of loose powerless EU.
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Oct 20, 2023 21:24
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the EU is intensely protectionistic wrt anything outside of the bloc. airbus and boeing have been in more or less constant litigation about this stuff for decades, and the EU is - imo to its credit - about the only entity which actually uses some teeth in regulating US tech businesses. the reason it does this is because the US tech businesses are, well, US tech businesses. if you want a more centralised EU, you should realise that this probably means making ursula von der leyen or someone exactly like her the most powerful politician in europe, or somehow engineering consensus for a wholesale constitutional convention. the latter is imo obviously not going to happen and i really don't think that the former is a good idea
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Oct 20, 2023 23:05
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I'm honestly surprised people see the last few years as a huge systemic flaw compared to the Americans. They are/can be energy independent, which we cannot. Most of the EU nations relied heavily on cheap energy through Russia, and since we cut ourselves off (a necessary decision!), even the alternatives went up in price, making energy a lot more expensive EU wide. And since we need energy for pretty much everything, everything got more expensive/less efficient. I guess the systemic flaw is that we aren't the most raw-resource rich continent, but there are no policy choices we can make to change that. Apart from abandoning our irrational hatred of nuclear power, I guess.
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Oct 20, 2023 23:50
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V. Illych L. posted:if you want a more centralised EU, you should realise that this probably means making ursula von der leyen or someone exactly like her the most powerful politician in europe, or somehow engineering consensus for a wholesale constitutional convention. the latter is imo obviously not going to happen and i really don't think that the former is a good idea The reason Ursula von der Leyen and her ilk in the Commission are so visible at the moment is precisely because of the current way EU works in practice with national politics being the pusher. The Commission basically does whatever the national politicians want, from the way commission members are chosen institutionally through European Council and the Council of the European Union (both institutions explicitly intergovernmental and run by national politicians) and the informal back dealings with powerful nations during the process. Basically the Commission's agenda is set by national governments when they decide the nominees for the next commissioners that European Parliament will then rubberstamp after maybe some bitching and whining. It is true that in theory Commission should push the interests of EU as a whole instead of national interests but I'm cynical enough to think that is just bullshit. EDIT: or to put it other way and more cynically, Commission pushes the European interests as determined by the current German and French leaders I don't think it is surprising that the current voices pushing for centralization and federalism want to do it through European Parliament. The whole thing is already structured around pan-European political groups and now they'd like to see pan-European lists, they want nomination powers to Commission and make the executive really answer to EP. So the institutional division in this view is between nation states in European Council and Commission against federalistic European Parliament. So more centralized EU capable of actually doing something in my view would happen through your latter option where we'd get clear separation of powers through somekind of constitutional convention. And you are absolutely correct that it would be extremely hard thing to do in practice because national politics still rule the day in Europe. So yeah, I don't think it is realistic. But for EU to actually become something that looks after the interests of European efficiently it absolutely has to do it. So I guess we're hosed lol. Glah fucked around with this message at 07:24 on Oct 21, 2023 |
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Oct 21, 2023 07:11
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I've said it before, one one hand I think we need a more centralized EU, on one hand, I really loving hate the idea of a more centralized EU. It's complicated. I wish the EU at least could have easier access to the money taps.Torrannor posted:I'm honestly surprised people see the last few years as a huge systemic flaw compared to the Americans. They are/can be energy independent, which we cannot. Most of the EU nations relied heavily on cheap energy through Russia, and since we cut ourselves off (a necessary decision!), even the alternatives went up in price, making energy a lot more expensive EU wide. And since we need energy for pretty much everything, everything got more expensive/less efficient. I guess the systemic flaw is that we aren't the most raw-resource rich continent, but there are no policy choices we can make to change that. Apart from abandoning our irrational hatred of nuclear power, I guess. We didn't have to be reliant on Russia and Germany is one of those countries that could have been energy independent if they wanted to, they actually sit on a lot of uranium. We also have resources in the EU, several big discoveries have been made in scandinavia and finland in recent years, and we've had resources in the EU all along, we've just not exploited them because we prefer to not dirty our own environments, or pay the cost for doing it more cleanly. So we preferred to be dependent there again, putting our trust in the neoliberal global order to hold. However this is changing a bit now and a lot of mines are planned due to new EU policies and estimated demand. It's a thing talked about a lot in Finland lately, particularly we got various economists saying don't let our right wing government turn us into a resource colony and sell out our resources to big foreign corps. There's talk that we should also do the refinement of what we mine here and sell that instead of the ore. His Divine Shadow fucked around with this message at 07:57 on Oct 21, 2023 |
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Oct 21, 2023 07:55
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His Divine Shadow posted:I've said it before, one one hand I think we need a more centralized EU, on one hand, I really loving hate the idea of a more centralized EU. It's complicated. Lol, I know exactly that feeling. What hope does EU have to reform when even the more pro-European people like us are paralyzed by indecision about do we really want it?
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Oct 21, 2023 08:02
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Glah posted:The reason Ursula von der Leyen and her ilk in the Commission are so visible at the moment is precisely because of the current way EU works in practice with national politics being the pusher. The Commission basically does whatever the national politicians want, from the way commission members are chosen institutionally through European Council and the Council of the European Union (both institutions explicitly intergovernmental and run by national politicians) and the informal back dealings with powerful nations during the process. Basically the Commission's agenda is set by national governments when they decide the nominees for the next commissioners that European Parliament will then rubberstamp after maybe some bitching and whining. It is true that in theory Commission should push the interests of EU as a whole instead of national interests but I'm cynical enough to think that is just bullshit. EDIT: or to put it other way and more cynically, Commission pushes the European interests as determined by the current German and French leaders the reason i put up these two alternatives is because one can either have wholesale reform or one can keep expanding on the institutions already there. the most obvious way of expanding on the institutions that are already there is, imo, centralising more authority to the Commission, i.e. empowering von der leyen. i agree that this would mean that replacing Commission becomes extremely fraught, which is part of the reason i don't think it's a good idea; the other part is because i have some rather profound political differences with the von der leyen style of politics. i have a hard time seeing a path to centralisation through the European Parliament without something like a constitutional convention, but i'm not familiar with the precise limits of the power of that instiution so here i'm willing to accept that i may have missed something important my point is that it's all well and good to say the "EU needs to centralise" but one needs to point out an at least imaginable way in which something like this can happen. the reason i'm pushing this is because from my perspective europhiles have a tendency to not argue in favour of the EU as it actually exists or can be readily conceived of as existing in the near future, but of a kind of Platonic European Union where the huge problems with the endeavour have been smoothed over. in my opinion there are insurmountable structural issues with the whole EU as it exists today as an institution, making the project probably untenable in the long term. in my opinion one has to accept something like this if one goes for the "constitutional convention" option, since it's basically accepting that there's no clear way forward for the EU within its present institutional framework. i of course accept that providing proper answers to this is way beyond the scope of a forums post, but these issues are important and at least belong in the conversation V. Illych L. fucked around with this message at 13:12 on Oct 21, 2023 |
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Oct 21, 2023 13:05
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V. Illych L. posted:in my opinion there are insurmountable structural issues with the whole EU as it exists today as an institution, making the project probably untenable in the long term. in my opinion one has to accept something like this if one goes for the "constitutional convention" option, since it's basically accepting that there's no clear way forward for the EU within its present institutional framework. Yes, EU is at the moment rudderless in institutional sense. Eurozone has common monetary policy but not common fiscal policy. While it is good from my point of view in Finland that we still have some vestiges of welfare state left without going full on liberal, the massive problem here is that it goes against all theories of how optimal currency area should work so now whole eurozone is stuck with suboptimal framework. And there's absolutely no way that this will change soon, because further EU integration is in total gridlock in a situation where nation states aren't willing to give anymore power to EU, and EU of course can't really reform itself because nation states control the executive in European Council and Commission. I think that the treaty of Lisbon was the highwater mark of institutional integration in EU that stemmed from intra-European consensus based integration. Only way for this to change is that more exogenous shocks and non-European political development (be it Trump getting re-elected, worsening US-China relations leading to instability in global markets, Putin loving around, climate change destablizing global situation, or possibly all of these) forcing EU to change to survive. Only way that European nations are willing to restart integration is if they realize that there's no other choice. Either do that or EU will collapse and European nations will have to deal with global crises on their own again. I'll give it a 50/50 chance of which of those happens lol.
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Oct 21, 2023 14:45
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Torrannor posted:I'm honestly surprised people see the last few years as a huge systemic flaw compared to the Americans. They are/can be energy independent, which we cannot. Most of the EU nations relied heavily on cheap energy through Russia, and since we cut ourselves off (a necessary decision!), even the alternatives went up in price, making energy a lot more expensive EU wide. And since we need energy for pretty much everything, everything got more expensive/less efficient. I guess the systemic flaw is that we aren't the most raw-resource rich continent, but there are no policy choices we can make to change that. Apart from abandoning our irrational hatred of nuclear power, I guess. Dumb American here, but it seems to me that the oil/energy prices are at least partially attributable to several systemic issues with EU governance specifically, namely shared markets with the associated rules against protectionist or anti-competitive investment and the general austerity policies. Raw resources can be an issue, but waiting until the last moment to switch off of something you know to be untenable in the long run is just an incredibly stupid decision. There are plenty of places in the EU where diverse investment into alternatives would have been feasible in terms of solar/wind/hydro, but because policies rewarding any of those would be unpopular for the member states unable to benefit from them it just didn't happen. In the US, when we want something like this to happen in spite of those issues, the solution is usually to find ways to cut the pie up so that the places that don't get the windmills get to produce the parts instead, leading to greater buy-in - this is impossible in Europe because every purchase has to compete in the free market, so there's never any incentive for the detractors to stop digging in their heels. This, in my eyes, is a big part of the reason why you see so much rural opposition to the EU as a project across every country - it's easy to think of it as being anti-immigrant (and obviously that happens too), but another aspect is that the EU never pays in to the regions that don't have dense populations because they have little capacity to compete on EU-scale projects. You will never see a meaningful movement for succession in the US the way you do in Europe because anyone with even the slightest understanding of the economy understands that the federal government is a huge contributor to economies in all the places where there's even an inkling of racist/anti-immigrant/anti-federal sentiment - it's not clear that the EU will be able to achieve the same as long as it isn't willing to spend on people and places that can't pay it back Obviously there's a lot of other factors to it, and this is a very hamfisted analysis (solar and wind don't provide the same kind of power as fossil fuels due to variable demand and whatnot, the US DID have the Civil War at one point [when federal government was weaker and didn't invest in social programs]), but it hardly seems like you can wave away these factors when the EU does put meaningful constraints on member states without making effective use of the tools they confiscate.
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Oct 21, 2023 18:23
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BougieBitch posted:Dumb American here, but it seems to me that the oil/energy prices are at least partially attributable to several systemic issues with EU governance specifically, namely shared markets with the associated rules against protectionist or anti-competitive investment and I did happen though. Europe has more renewabkes and nuclear in its energy mix than the US. The main issue is thermal energy for industry though which can't just be replaced with renewabkes or nuclear. If we did that then there straight up would be no industry in Europe because we couldn't possibly compete with everyone, including the US, who kept using gas or coal. You’re essentially saying it was incredibly stupid of Europeans to not shut down their economy sooner instead of hoping Putin wasn't entirely unreliable.
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Oct 22, 2023 07:45
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Ok, another Financial Times article all about Europe's efforts to regain footing in comparison to China and America: The EU’s plan to regain its competitive edge
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Nov 6, 2023 02:10
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Owling Howl posted:I did happen though. Europe has more renewables and nuclear in its energy mix than the US. It's not so much the raw percentages of renewables in the mix that I'm objecting to, so much as the lack of sovereignty over your energy supply - the US absolutely is contributing to climate change in much greater ways, but that's a separate issue than the economic one I am pointing out here. After loving around and finding out in the Middle East, the US made a concerted effort to reduce imports and increase domestic production for oil to meet needs starting in 2005, and now the US is a net exporter because we decided that it was a national security risk to allow ourselves to be that dependent on foreign oil: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-products/imports-and-exports.php Obviously, Europe by and large doesn't have that option - I'm not super informed about who has what reserves and how accessible they are, but I feel pretty comfortable saying that fracking and whatever else would still not meet needs domestically even if the oil-rich countries went all-in. That is why it was EVEN MORE important for Europe to invest in renewables - for the US, the greening process has been slow because climate change wasn't perceived as an immediate threat, but we could get cut off from Middle Eastern oil at any time, so we planned with urgency for that scenario. For Europe, where oil sovereignty would be impossible, the only contingency that makes sense is conversion to domestic renewables. Even if we assert that renewables moved as fast as possible given the maturity of the tech though (and while that might be true for actual renewables it absolutely isn't for nuclear energy), the choices made with oil were still political malpractice https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/stati...on_of_crude_oil Assuming the production and import tabs here are accurate, Russia was the only oil trading partner Europe kept the same from 2000-2021 - sure it makes sense to phase out Saudi Arabia, but Norway? I assume that Norway made the decision to reduce production for domestic environmental reasons, but you lose all control over the conditions of production when you import - in this case the consequence was a forced acquiescence to Russia's military adventures for two decades, but even if it was coming from South America you'd still be just as responsible for THEIR environmental and political consequences, even if those costs are invisible domestically. Similarly, it seems like Denmark massively throttled back their domestic production from around 2005 - I don't know to what degree that boils down to the easiest options drying up vs governmental appetite for allowing permitting going down/competition with Russia on price becoming impossible, but in either case it is emblematic of the point If Europe had kept proportions the same and phased all trade partners out at equal levels starting in 2000 this would have been a non-issue, and the consequences from any one partner getting cut off would have been bearable. The reason this didn't happen is at least partially because the "free market" attitude of the EU makes it impossible to price in international externalities out of a desire to avoid "protectionist" practices. It turns out though that protectionism makes sense for reasons other than sheer nationalism though, in the same way that companies have learned that extended supply chains come with their own hidden costs. quote:You're essentially saying it was incredibly stupid of Europeans to not shut down their economy sooner instead of hoping Putin wasn't entirely unreliable. I mean, hindsight is 20/20, but I think plenty of people had really good reasons not to trust Putin more than a decade ago - the suppression of Chechnya right at the turn of the millennium, the invasion of Georgia in 2008, or 2014 in Ukraine, take your pick really. Obviously trying to do a hard stop would have been even MORE of a cliff in those years, but Russia has been sanctioned since 2014 by the EU, so that's the absolute latest point you could say planning for the future with Russia in mind made any sense except from a "immediate profits" sense. Like, people do/did business with the Saudis, but no one really thinks that's a *good idea* or *long-term thinking*. At least with the Saudis most people trading with them don't share a land border - investing in a physical pipeline that can only trade with Russia instead of generalizable seaport capacity is probably the most inexcusable mistake, since the actual construction for Nordstream 2 only started in 2015. In the same sense, I think everyone knows and has known that outsourcing all manufacturing to China instead of diversifying or re-shoring is a horrible idea, and it was basically dumb luck that COVID was the thing that triggered an international reshuffling rather than anything the Chinese government did. Anyone who is caught with their pants down 5 years from now if China gets sanctioned is "incredibly stupid" for similar reasons, and the fact that their treatment of minorities wasn't enough in the decades prior is just another example of every level of global society neglecting to price in externalities, same as emissions causing climate change (That's not to say that the US doesn't have a ton of incredibly horrible blind spots in terms of partners, Israel in particular is unforgivable, but I absolutely blame that on the US governments, past and future, and I don't see why the European relationship with Russia doesn't deserve to be similarly criticized). Edit: that's also not getting into other potential rollouts that could have further reduced need - for example, heat pumps have got a lot of attention lately, but they aren't exactly new tech. I'm sure that recent advancements have been part of the driver for the international attention, but I can't believe that there was no potential for Europe to adopt them. As far as I can tell, there don't seem to be consumer incentives to refit with them in the EU BougieBitch fucked around with this message at 16:04 on Nov 6, 2023 |
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Nov 6, 2023 15:39
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That post just seems to be saying that EU is stupid for not putting itself in the pocket of the US sooner. Or if you don't think EU should've worked with Russia or China, then to go double hard on not letting go of its colonial influence in Africa.
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Nov 6, 2023 15:56
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Electric Wrigglies posted:That post just seems to be saying that EU is stupid for not putting itself in the pocket of the US sooner. Or if you don't think EU should've worked with Russia or China, then to go double hard on not letting go of its colonial influence in Africa. Hardly - nowhere in that post did I suggest that imports from the US would be a good solution. All the issues with becoming over-reliant on Russia apply just as much to the US - after Trump, it is impossible to argue that the US is a consistent or reliable ally. The argument is that the EU should be cautious not to over-rely on a single trade partner just because they can offer a quick fix or a bulk discount, because you will always get burned by not diversifying your sources, and you should always have some in-house capacity that can keep you going in case poo poo hits the fan internationally, even if it isn't cost-competitive in a vacuum. It's really easy to fall into the trap of becoming more reliant on large countries such as the US, Russia, and China, because you can say "well, they make up 50% of production of this item, so we should be okay if we keep ourselves to 30% coming from them". This is a huge trap, because the entirety of that 30% is at risk when something goes wrong, and it is a lot easier to deal with several little 5% contributions falling off than 30% all at once. It's like making 30% of your stock portfolio Microsoft because "well, they are a blue-chip stock, I can safely assume modest gains forever". If what you want is some guarantee that you can retire, diversify your drat portfolio, and always keep some in CDs! Obviously personal finance is far from 1-to-1 with international trade, but it should be self-apparent that this lesson applies to the US as much as China or Russia, even if the analogy is crude. In any case, Europe is already displaying that they have learned not to over-rely on the US for NATO contributions, which is the same lesson but pointed West instead of East Edit: it isn't like this is especially new advice in any case, basically everyone ignores risks that they seem to be more than 2 standard deviations from expectations or w/e and people have been talking about how this leads to issues with the election of Trump and the COVID crisis. One of the big issues in all of these cases, of course, is that expectations are sticky - while the odds of a global pandemic happening a decade or two ago would have been dismissed as "1 in a million", it goes up when certain conditions occur, and once you have a specific virus in question like bird flu or COVID it might be more like 1/1000 or 1/100. Once we started seeing certain patterns we could be 30 or 40 or 50% sure that it wasn't stopping, but people stayed in denial right up until they caught it themselves, and sometimes even past that. The odds of Trump becoming president in 2012 was probably "1 in a million", but once you hit 2015 it becomes 1/50 and throughout 2016 it went to 1/10 then to 1/3 and so on until it was just the truth. In 1992 it made sense to think of Russia as broken and beaten and needing economic support and potentially being a good trade partner, but the odds of them becoming expansionist was still probably 1/100 or 1/50, and that's being generous. By 1998 it was maybe 1/2, and after that point it was just a fact. The goalposts started moving by then, because people had placed bets on the 99/100 or 49/50 and refused to lose on what they had deemed a sure bet at the time. Instead of taking steps throughout the 90s and 2000s to hedge against what was increasingly becoming the more likely possibility, those that had staked their reputation on backing Russia moved the goalposts so that each successive piece of evidence didn't count, because their behavior in Chechnya and Georgia weren't "really" expansionist. Now it is 2023 and some of those same people talk about how NATO or the EU is really to blame for Russia moving into Ukraine, because we didn't respect their historical right to have satellite states. The horse left the barn two decades ago, but people were still buying and selling shares of that horse all the way up to 2022, and it was basically a continent-wide economic bubble with about as much basis as tulip bulbs by the end I also address the Africa point there a bit when I talk about the externalities of getting oil exclusively from South America - outsourcing the production of fossil fuels doesn't reduce the harm, it just inflicts it on someone else. It makes a lot of sense to reduce domestic consumption of oil (because that decreases aggregate consumption and emissions), but that doesn't necessarily mean you should be equally eager to reduce domestic production (because if you are importing to replace it you haven't actually reduced emissions). I think it is somewhat telling to generalize the options as "America, Russia, China, or do a colonialism". In some ways maybe that's true, but to cast every country in Africa, South America, and Asia as a perpetual victim that can never be traded with on equal terms is just going to reinforce the harms. If you believe the EU can't negotiate in good faith with anyone smaller, then that's a really big flaw in design, and something needs to be done about that internally. Even from a sheer market perspective though, you don't need to expect Vietnam or Singapore or Zambia to compete with China on price and quality for factory work, for example - because it reduces your risk of catastrophic failure, it is already worth something to you even if the start-up cost for diversifying is higher prices or lower quality until workers get trained and technology starts to scale. Further, washing your hands of colonies rather than trying to pay reparations creates global instability and is a big reason why Belt and Road from China is still such a threat - the countries that take those deals are going to end up double-colonized as they miss interest payments and end up like Argentina. Letting the market sort it out just means people are only worried about getting out before the house of cards falls, and no one is going to consider things at an EU or global level unless that is their job BougieBitch fucked around with this message at 16:57 on Nov 6, 2023 |
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Nov 6, 2023 16:16
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His Divine Shadow posted:I've said it before, one one hand I think we need a more centralized EU, on one hand, I really loving hate the idea of a more centralized EU. It's complicated. I wish the EU at least could have easier access to the money taps. God i hope you dont fall for the temptation to sell out. The Nordics are on the edge of Europe. It honestly would not take much for us to lose our "european/white" status and be treated like the Kongo if there was a truly severe resource crisis on the continent.
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Nov 6, 2023 20:33
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BougieBitch posted:
We dropped cheap russian gas for distant, low quality, expensive liquid gas from the U.S........ we are soooo clever in the E.U........ 
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Nov 10, 2023 02:54
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You're right, we should've done this earlier, but late progress is still progress.
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Nov 10, 2023 11:50
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Hopefully we will all learn our lesson and not address climate change too late to prevent disaster. *puts finger to ear* Ah, well. Perhaps before the Water Wars?
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Nov 10, 2023 13:05
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Tesseraction posted:Ah, well. Perhaps before the Water Wars? No need to stress about water wars, I've heard that Immortan Joe has a steady and cheap supply of water and that he is more than willing to take care of all of Europe's water needs. I even think that in the spirit of co-operation, the former German chancellor has joined the board of Joe's corporation in his Roaming Band of Agony. I think we can rest easy with European peoples thirst having been satiated permanently, absolutely nothing can go wrong.
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Nov 10, 2023 13:23
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The lack of an EU response to the americans IRA has probably resulted in the latest news breaking on the local community here near Vaasa. The planned battery factory that has been a big deal for years now (by local politicians and news anyway), isn't happening or is getting cut down to a cathode factory only, if that. In the same row the company is announcing their move of their HQ and manufacturing to the US. Pretty sure this is directly because of them following IRA money and we don't got nothing we can put against the US.
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Nov 13, 2023 15:06
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Glad the EU is just staring at the passing of the IRA the same way a moose does when confronted with a textbook on Lagrangian points. Although better than the UK where our response is like it was to our more regional IRA: killing its own civilians.
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Nov 13, 2023 15:16
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Going to be amusing when EU breaks away from Chinese supply chains when America asks/demands it while at the same time being unable to answer American public investments to green industries thanks to lack of political will. I mean EU can and will try, but thanks to US having more coherent federal system, they'll always be able to up the ante and easily outspend EU. Eh, we tried and was fun while it lasted but I guess Europe will now return to being good vassals of American Empire.
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Nov 13, 2023 15:37
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"Return" lol
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Nov 13, 2023 16:15
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RETVRN to getting reamed by the US capitalist engine while measles and smallpox kill our young.
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Nov 13, 2023 16:21
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BougieBitch posted:Hardly - nowhere in that post did I suggest that imports from the US would be a good solution. All the issues with becoming over-reliant on Russia apply just as much to the US - after Trump, it is impossible to argue that the US is a consistent or reliable ally. The argument is that the EU should be cautious not to over-rely on a single trade partner just because they can offer a quick fix or a bulk discount, because you will always get burned by not diversifying your sources, and you should always have some in-house capacity that can keep you going in case poo poo hits the fan internationally, even if it isn't cost-competitive in a vacuum. It's really easy to fall into the trap of becoming more reliant on large countries such as the US, Russia, and China, because you can say "well, they make up 50% of production of this item, so we should be okay if we keep ourselves to 30% coming from them". This is a huge trap, because the entirety of that 30% is at risk when something goes wrong, and it is a lot easier to deal with several little 5% contributions falling off than 30% all at once. BougieDumbBitch (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Nov 13, 2023 16:22
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Glah posted:Going to be amusing when EU breaks away from Chinese supply chains when America asks/demands it while at the same time being unable to answer American public investments to green industries thanks to lack of political will. I mean EU can and will try, but thanks to US having more coherent federal system, they'll always be able to up the ante and easily outspend EU. Not sure "coherent" is the word I'd use for the US federal government at the moment
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Nov 13, 2023 16:57
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It's all relative. Coherency -wise US federal policy is like Prussian infantry column goosewalking in parade ground compared to clusterfuck that is EU long term policy.
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Nov 13, 2023 17:03
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Local (as in Finland) news are finally writing about the IRA and also Germany's (and France) own subsidies of it's domestic industries and how both things are detrimental to both the EU as a whole. I wonder if people are waking to late, or if they will wake at all. Regardless of it all we're a xenophobic lot with a shrinking population (so no immigration to help) and it feels like we got no future prospects but a managed decline.
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Nov 20, 2023 09:42
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That's what decades of unopposed neoliberal thought does to a motherfucker. Though admittedly I don't know if the Nordic socialdemocratic model tried to assert itself ideologically or if it was just limping along trying to cut its losses where it could in the past 30 years.
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Nov 20, 2023 13:13
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In Finland Nordic model has been going through slow death of thousand cuts, especially since 2008 when employer side walked out of tripartite agreement (corporatist system where unions, employer side and government come together to agree on overall labour agreeements) breaking the system that had built the welfare state. Now we have bourgeoise government that seems to be eager to finish the job. At least labour unions are now activating with "warning shots" and there are strikes happening with promises of incresing them if the government continues with their policies. Well unions expect my useless cowardly white collar engineer's union that just today sent a message to members about 'how they'd like the government to reconsider their policy proposals, but if they after reconsidering still want to push their bougie policy then the union wont do anything because they're the democratically elected government and its the will of the people  ' Fuuuuck them, useless shits.
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Nov 20, 2023 14:26
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Sounds like your union is captured TBH. Any chance you can defect to the blue collar union?
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Nov 20, 2023 15:04
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Unfortunately I'm working under timed contract with only couple of months left, so I'm stuck with them until I get an extension or a permanent position. Otherwise I risk losing access to union dole. But the moment I get an extension, I'll be looking into changing unions.
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Nov 20, 2023 15:22
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| # ? May 30, 2024 14:25 |
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The Netherlands is holding parliamentary elections on Tuesday, FYI. Expect another right-wing government but there could be some surprises as many parties have dumped their leaders and several new ones have appeared.
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Nov 20, 2023 15:43
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