WWII era has ended

The EU will make its own foreign policy and its own trade relations with both Russia and China.

Is that how the U.S. has developed them, Reilly?

I can well imagine that Trump, Bannon, and Kushner have discussed the benefits of having millions of people killed in a big war,
and how delicious the huge war industry profits are going to be for fat-cats like themselves.

I can well imagine that Trump, Bannon, and Kushner have discussed the benefits of having millions of people killed in a big war,
and how delicious the huge war industry profits are going to be for fat-cats like themselves.

Donald J. Trump on Saturday accused the media of exaggerating his relationship with Jared Kushner, asserting that “I don’t know him very well.”

“He’s someone I would see around the office and who, I guess, was working for me,” Trump told reporters on the last leg of his foreign trip. “Beyond that, I couldn’t tell you much about him.”

Well, they've gotten away without paying their agreed upon share for yonks so
I can't blame them for it; everybody likes free, don't they? I guess that
not paying your signed treaty share isn't being a hypocrite if you never
intended to pay it. //I really don't know why we wasted so many American lives
to save them from the approaching Red Army.// We should have just stopped at
the Maginot Line to save Alsace.

Mein Gott! What Germany Inc. Can Teach America About Economics

For now the key point is that Americans should simply take note that their mainstream economic commentators -- the same ones whose theories paved the way for the Wall Street crash -- are even less reliable on economies like Germany and Japan than they are on the United States.

Why Germany Has It So Much Better Than the U.S.

Germany has somehow managed to create a high-wage, unionized economy without shipping all its jobs abroad.

The European Union, 27 member nations with a half billion people, has become the largest, wealthiest trading bloc in the world, producing nearly a third of the world's economy -- nearly as large as the US and China combined. Europe has more Fortune 500 companies than either the US, China or Japan.

European nations spend far less than the United States for universal healthcare rated by the World Health Organization as the best in the world, even as U.S. health care is ranked 37th. Europe leads in confronting global climate change with renewable energy technologies, creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs in the process. Europe is twice as energy efficient as the US and their ecological "footprint" (the amount of the earth's capacity that a population consumes) is about half that of the United States for the same standard of living.

Unemployment in the US is widespread and becoming chronic, but when Americans have jobs, we work much longer hours than our peers in Europe. Before the recession, Americans were working 1,804 hours per year versus 1,436 hours for Germans -- the equivalent of nine extra 40-hour weeks per year.

In his new book, Were You Born on the Wrong Continent?, Thomas Geoghegan makes a strong case that European social democracies -- particularly Germany -- have some lessons and models that might make life a lot more livable. Germans have six weeks of federally mandated vacation, free university tuition, and nursing care. But you've heard the arguments for years about how those wussy Europeans can't compete in a global economy. You've heard that so many times, you might believe it. But like so many things, the media repeats endlessly, it's just not true.

We should have just stopped at
the Maginot Line to save Alsace.

1. The EU will make its own foreign policy and its own trade relations with both Russia and China

2. Ultimately the EU will need its own nuclear capability.

3. It is not clear when this will happen but in time the dollar will cease to be the world's reserve currency. It will take time and further evolution of China's political structure before China can replace the US.

4. The unusual growth of the US economy will lose one of it's primary supports.