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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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May 29, 2017 - 03:01pm PT
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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.
Your lack of understanding is exposed, again. This is not about them owing some amount of money to NATO, like UN Dues. It is about spending a certain amount (2% of GDP) on defense issues.
Perhaps we stopped the Red Army, so that you wouldn't have to learn Russian, Comrade!
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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May 29, 2017 - 03:14pm PT
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And perhaps the USA was supportive of other countries not investing in their own militaries so we could treat them as our vassals and stick our own military bases all over the world to extend our global influence.
Now we whine about the arrangement that we were probably instrumental in creating if not specifically enforcing.
Well, I have my backup plan. Wife is from Italy, good job prospects for both of us in Switzerland when my kids grow up. Sorry kids, you'll be left holding the bag. Start learning Mandarin or at least German. Prospects for Russian speakers looking pretty good a few decades from now too!
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chainsaw
Trad climber
CA
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May 29, 2017 - 03:48pm PT
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This thread raises some valid concerns. But much of it is predicated on the assumption that US-Europe relations are going to collapse. But that is not what will happen. This sabre rattling from Merkel is a bluff intended to show strength. But she is bluffing, just as Trump is bluffing also. The United States will not abandon our allies in Europe. Think of these negotiations as a game of Texas Holdem. Noones cards are on the table yet. I think of Europe as like a spoiled child. The US is saying that we are going to take away their allowance if they dont do their chores. Merkel, the spoiled child, is now threatening to run away from home. But Merkel cant afford to leave the security of our protection and financial support. She might even go shack up at a friends house to see how much she can manipulate her benefactor, the US. But noone provides a roof over her head and protects her like we do. She will come home or not. But I think she will. We still love her.
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Fritz
Social climber
Choss Creek, ID
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May 29, 2017 - 05:25pm PT
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Chainsaw? I worry that you haven't visited Germany lately & also don't know their current economic strength.
Perhaps you should peruse this 2013 article in Forbes, before comparing Germany to a whinny child.
Mein Gott! What Germany Inc. Can Teach America About Economics
The story is summed up with this quote:
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.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/eamonnfingleton/2013/09/22/main-gott-what-germany-inc-can-teach-america-about-economics/#60dcc43b791f
And from Alternet, we have this article:
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.
http://www.alternet.org/economy/why-germany-has-it-so-much-better-us
Disclaimer! I'm a 3rd generation Idaho Native & I don't love Germany.
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Gary
Social climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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May 29, 2017 - 05:33pm PT
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We should have just stopped at
the Maginot Line to save Alsace.
And more importantly their Riesling and Pinot Blanc.
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
Sands Motel , Las Vegas
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May 29, 2017 - 06:04pm PT
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Fritz...Thanks for digging that up...
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crankster
Trad climber
No. Tahoe
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May 29, 2017 - 06:11pm PT
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Impeachment proceedings begin in Jan. '19. Hang in there.
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nah000
climber
no/w/here
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May 29, 2017 - 07:12pm PT
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if true: then it's about 40 years too late.
that is assuming that by wwII era one means u.s. hegemony in concert with european complicit/complacent-ness.
it has been primarily perpetual covert meddling in the [including the overt manufacture of] middle east [wars], that has kept the post bretton woods collapse, u.s. petro dollar as de facto world currency.
that said, the idea that we are in a post wwII era [as defined above] is, at this point, premature.
the world is still unipolar with the u.s. as our [not always so] fearless leader.
and whether a multipolar world is ultimately going to be "better" or "worse" is impossible to know.
what i do know, is that if it does happen, it will be a representationally more honest one.
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SteveW
Trad climber
The state of confusion
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May 29, 2017 - 07:18pm PT
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Good post, Fritz!
If a few people would realize we aren't so exceptional, maybe they'd get
off their duffs and demand better. . .
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chainsaw
Trad climber
CA
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May 30, 2017 - 06:54am PT
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Wake up Fritz. Germany cost Europe and Russia over 20,000,000 lives and $1,000,000,000,000 by attacking all their neighbors and killing Jews and Anyone they didnt like. Then the United states paid to rebuild their country and most of Europe. Now we spend our money for their defense. Its convenient for them that we have paid the price for their free ride. In my view, perhaps we should have COMPLETELY destroyed Germany and given her wealth to the French and the British and to Isreal. Instead we rebuilt and defend them. Germany destroyed Poland, Czechoslovakia, much of France, Belgium, half of London......Ukraine. Perhaps we should force them to pay their unpaid war reparations and then we will see what they have left. Dont defend them. You cannot rewrite history.
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chainsaw
Trad climber
CA
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May 30, 2017 - 07:08am PT
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Hey there Fritz, sorry if my tone was bitter there. Friends and family of mine had all their fingers broken with pliers and watched the Nazis gun down their families while in a concentration camp. They were interred for being musicians. I shouldnt post so early in the morning. I was awoken by a flurry of group messages from a spammer.
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ontheedgeandscaredtodeath
Social climber
SLO, Ca
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May 30, 2017 - 09:41am PT
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When Republicans won control of all three branches I knew I would pretty much disagree with all of their policies. Elections have consequences and that's the way it goes. Truth be told a lot of what they will do won't affect me.
What worries me is that Trump is obviously unstable and has cognitive problems. When you read a transcript of what he says it is total word salad. I don't think he has a clue what he is doing and may reorder the western world with no rationally based plan.
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Happiegrrrl2
Trad climber
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May 30, 2017 - 10:13am PT
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The delicate balance of our political/economic environment was why I believed Hillary Clinton was not only the best choice for POTUS, but the only acceptable choice. It angered me to hear Berners so peeved about "us," when the whole WORLD was at stake.
But I still have hope. As I have posted numerous times, I am following a group of Twitterees that have been days, weeks and even in some cases MONTHS ahead of all mainstream news on the whole Trump debacle. If my comprehension of between the lines reading is right(and I think that it is) the IC has known for well, well, before last spring that Trump was being played by Russians. You know how sometimes the cops keep a watch on criminals because they will get information by watching instead of nabbing too early; information they otherwise can't get? That has been what's been going on.
One of them posted a quote the other day, from Ralph Waldo Emerson. "When you strike at a king, you must kill him." Much as it disgusts me to consider DT in the realm of king, I suppose in a way, the little fker has been placed on the throne, even as he is only the fingers of the true ruler. So, in order to save what is the basis of the U.S., all heads of the Hydra must be whacked.
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c wilmot
climber
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May 30, 2017 - 10:19am PT
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Perhaps merkel is giving a subtle warning to the rest of Europe that Germany has imperialistic desires once again.
Who will save Germany and the rest of Europe from...Germany ?
The horror
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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May 30, 2017 - 10:28am PT
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1. The EU will make its own foreign policy and its own trade relations with both Russia and China
The EU already has separate agreements with those two nations. Are you confusing NATO with the EU?
2. Ultimately the EU will need its own nuclear capability.
Why would a trade bloc need a nuke capacity? If they extend credit to say, an African country and that nation defaults ( due to the usual corruption) does this mean the EU bureaucrats will cut their lunches short by an hour to drop a few kilotons on Nairobi?
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.
It is by no means some kind of foregone conclusion that China is going to replace anything or anybody except a few pairs of my worn out socks. It's not the political structure that needs reforming in China, that is ,as regards the West, or China's economic position in the world-- what needs reforming in China can't be reformed overnight because it is traceable to the " one child policy" instituted several decades ago. China is experiencing the beginning stages of a demographic downshift, believe it or not, and this is recognized as a huge problem by the Chinese leadership. For that and for other reasons (technology) the Chicoms are very skittish about the future and are very eager to forge a closer interdependent relationship with the US. For the foreseeable future China needs the US far more than the US needs China.
4. The unusual growth of the US economy will lose one of it's primary supports.
This comment makes no sense to me.
One last word on the EU:
They are experiencing tremendous demographic problems in Europe. Because their fertility rates have been so low over the decades they are losing their highly educated people and there only option is to import millions of poor, uneducated consumers and workers, and fast, which is all shaping-up to be a big mess.
In the long run the only hope for the EU is exactly the science fiction scenario they've been aiming for : the dissolution of the European nation state and its subsequent inclusion in a global super state with themselves and their diktats in charge of a sort of regional political/economic franchise.
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