General EU Thread

[miletus12]

Nov 10, 2022 8:45:02 GMT simon darkshade said:

Wir Schaffen Das.

You write that and I automatically think about what I did for the USG. I look at that person who says "We can do it" in the eye, and declare to her / him; "It will be IN WRITING with my stipulations and requirements in the contract you sign; and if you do not meet those conditions and deadlines to my satisfaction, your posterior is Bermuda and the USG is the lawn mower."

If someone had held Angela Merkel to account, Germany would not be in the mess it is in.  

[stevep]

   Another storm building in the EU over migrants, between Italy and France.  The latter has canceled a deal to take small numbers of migrants that arrive in Italy and called on other EU nations to do likewise because Italy blocked the movement of rescue ships which had picked up migrants until one of the four ships went to France.  Both governments are appealing to their right wing elements.  Earlier items on the subject here - Italy allows migrants to disembark from one ship and here - standoff as Italy bans male/adult migrants from leaving charity ship.  Those are in date order with the earliest being the last.

[miletus12]

The United States is readying itself for the China challenge. That means we are looking out for ourselves. The EU is going to HOWL. The EU wants the US to continue business as usual which inevitably means CHINA replaces us as the global shot caller. That is not going to happen with THIS Republic. We do not want a world war.

[stevep]

Dec 7, 2022 22:08:30 GMT miletus12 said:

The United States is readying itself for the China challenge. That means we are looking out for ourselves. The EU is going to HOWL. The EU wants the US to continue business as usual which inevitably means CHINA replaces us as the global shot caller. That is not going to happen with THIS Republic. We do not want a world war.

    This is the China you keep posting is inevitably going to collapse very shortly?  You need some level of consistency please.

  As he says the US is intending to breach the international laws that it insisted on and has benefited from greatly.  He's talking BS when he tries to pretend there's been a one way street on trade access.  One of the big problems I found with the early EU especially is that it was highly protectionist but so for most of the period has been the US.  You get rare exceptions, such as Reagan with his chips comparison although now much protection was reduced in reality its difficult to say. 

 

[miletus12]

Dec 8, 2022 12:59:36 GMT stevep said:

Dec 7, 2022 22:08:30 GMT miletus12 said:

The United States is readying itself for the China challenge. That means we are looking out for ourselves. The EU is going to HOWL. The EU wants the US to continue business as usual which inevitably means CHINA replaces us as the global shot caller. That is not going to happen with THIS Republic. We do not want a world war.

    This is the China you keep posting is inevitably going to collapse very shortly?  You need some level of consistency please.

  As he says the US is intending to breach the international laws that it insisted on and has benefited from greatly.  He's talking BS when he tries to pretend there's been a one way street on trade access.  One of the big problems I found with the early EU especially is that it was highly protectionist but so for most of the period has been the US.  You get rare exceptions, such as Reagan with his chips comparison although now much protection was reduced in reality its difficult to say. 

 

You conflate the citations with my opinions. IF YOU READ CAREFULLY, especially over the past few days, I wrote that CHINA under Xi has started its version of Perestroika and that the US is in a hot trade war with it. Those are MY opinions.

The USG can do as it likes, Steve, in defense of the United States. Bretton Woods is our solution to Europe's recurring wars. You gave us permission to fix your mess when you signed on to it. Not our problem in the collateral damage if we have to do what we have to do to save the world order and prevent another world war.

That is the price of peace.

CYNICAL Miletus

[stevep]

Dec 8, 2022 20:36:04 GMT miletus12 said:

Dec 8, 2022 12:59:36 GMT stevep said:

    This is the China you keep posting is inevitably going to collapse very shortly?  You need some level of consistency please.

  As he says the US is intending to breach the international laws that it insisted on and has benefited from greatly.  He's talking BS when he tries to pretend there's been a one way street on trade access.  One of the big problems I found with the early EU especially is that it was highly protectionist but so for most of the period has been the US.  You get rare exceptions, such as Reagan with his chips comparison although now much protection was reduced in reality its difficult to say. 

 

You conflate the citations with my opinions. IF YOU READ CAREFULLY, especially over the past few days, I wrote that CHINA under Xi has started its version of Perestroika and that the US is in a hot trade war with it. Those are MY opinions.

The USG can do as it likes, Steve, in defense of the United States. Bretton Woods is our solution to Europe's recurring wars. You gave us permission to fix your mess when you signed on to it. Not our problem in the collateral damage if we have to do what we have to do to save the world order and prevent another world war.

That is the price of peace.

CYNICAL Miletus

  If its willing to be accepted as a rogue state yes.  The rest of that statement is detached from both reality and historical fact.  Idiots who think their above all restrains and morals are very good at starting war unfortunately.  Its back to the same old American exceptionalism BS.

[raunchel]

Dec 9, 2022 13:18:05 GMT stevep said:

Dec 8, 2022 20:36:04 GMT miletus12 said:

You conflate the citations with my opinions. IF YOU READ CAREFULLY, especially over the past few days, I wrote that CHINA under Xi has started its version of Perestroika and that the US is in a hot trade war with it. Those are MY opinions.

The USG can do as it likes, Steve, in defense of the United States. Bretton Woods is our solution to Europe's recurring wars. You gave us permission to fix your mess when you signed on to it. Not our problem in the collateral damage if we have to do what we have to do to save the world order and prevent another world war.

That is the price of peace.

CYNICAL Miletus

  If its willing to be accepted as a rogue state yes.  The rest of that statement is detached from both reality and historical fact.  Idiots who think their above all restrains and morals are very good at starting war unfortunately.  Its back to the same old American exceptionalism BS.

It's Zeihan. That kind of is his thing. He believes that the US will benefit from everything and that everything else will inevitably fall apart.

[miletus12]

Dec 9, 2022 13:18:05 GMT stevep said:

Dec 8, 2022 20:36:04 GMT miletus12 said:

You conflate the citations with my opinions. IF YOU READ CAREFULLY, especially over the past few days, I wrote that CHINA under Xi has started its version of Perestroika and that the US is in a hot trade war with it. Those are MY opinions.

The USG can do as it likes, Steve, in defense of the United States. Bretton Woods is our solution to Europe's recurring wars. You gave us permission to fix your mess when you signed on to it. Not our problem in the collateral damage if we have to do what we have to do to save the world order and prevent another world war.

That is the price of peace.

CYNICAL Miletus

  If its willing to be accepted as a rogue state yes.  The rest of that statement is detached from both reality and historical fact.  Idiots who think their above all restrains and morals are very good at starting war unfortunately.  Its back to the same old American exceptionalism BS.

The USG is doing exactly what the British government did in the 19th Century and attempted and failed to do in the 20th century. Was the British government a rogue state? And how is fact stated, separated from reality? The inflation reduction act is a fact. It is aimed at China, a dictatorship, which is another fact. The EU is going to have its one way trade advantage with the US wrecked as collateral damage, as an economic fact. We, ourselves, are going into a deliberately engineered recession, which postpones our own recovery by 20 years.  That is part of our price of admiralty.  

We are not idiots. We are trying (rather selfishly, because we built it, to save post WWII democracy) to save an international global sinking ship and nobody, including us, is going to escape damage from the attempt, successful or unsuccessful.    

You might think it is selfish of us to be "exceptional" in this attempt, but there is nobody else left to be the champions of "truth, justice and the (democratic / American) way".  

[miletus12]

Dec 9, 2022 17:52:25 GMT raunchel said:

Dec 9, 2022 13:18:05 GMT stevep said:

  If its willing to be accepted as a rogue state yes.  The rest of that statement is detached from both reality and historical fact.  Idiots who think their above all restrains and morals are very good at starting war unfortunately.  Its back to the same old American exceptionalism BS.

It's Zeihan. That kind of is his thing. He believes that the US will benefit from everything and that everything else will inevitably fall apart.

Zeihan is a jingoist. I am more of a "realist". I think we are doomed to fail, because we did not strike the dictators down soon enough. 

George Santayana, remember? 




 

[stevep]

Dec 9, 2022 18:25:08 GMT miletus12 said:

Dec 9, 2022 13:18:05 GMT stevep said:

  If its willing to be accepted as a rogue state yes.  The rest of that statement is detached from both reality and historical fact.  Idiots who think their above all restrains and morals are very good at starting war unfortunately.  Its back to the same old American exceptionalism BS.

The USG is doing exactly what the British government did in the 19th Century and attempted and failed to do in the 20th century. Was the British government a rogue state? And how is fact stated, separated from reality? The inflation reduction act is a fact. It is aimed at China, a dictatorship, which is another fact. The EU is going to have its one way trade advantage with the US wrecked as collateral damage, as an economic fact. We, ourselves, are going into a deliberately engineered recession, which postpones our own recovery by 20 years.  That is part of our price of admiralty. 

  Untrue.  The UK never set out to destroy the world economic system and it sought to maintain the one it played a major part in establishing even when that was no longer in our interest.

  The inflation reduction act is a fact and some may think of it as an attack on China rather than trying to rescue the US economy, which is its stated purpose and which badly needs doing.  However I was referring to to argument being presented that the attempts to restrict Russian oil sales were some sort of European action and the US would intervene to block it when its well known that Washington is fully involved in the operation.  Or the BS that the US faces an uneven playing field when it comes to trade with Europe.  [The only part of this that is accurate is that the US maintain large world-wide forces - which the rest of the west couldn't do after 1945 despite the US pressing the UK to do so - and which when it came to things like strategic nuclear forces the US sought to block European powers from getting.  This was compounded when after the collapse of the Soviet empire the US now 'fixed' on its idea of the world military giant took a markedly smaller peace dividend than the rest of the west.  This was the US's choice.]  The US has always been deeply protectionist and while formal barriers are now largely gone it still have plenty of others.

  The highlighted bit, if accurate is the action of an idiot.

We are not idiots. We are trying (rather selfishly, because we built it, to save post WWII democracy) to save an international global sinking ship and nobody, including us, is going to escape damage from the attempt, successful or unsuccessful.

  Then don't, by your own 'confession' plan on wreaking it.

You might think it is selfish of us to be "exceptional" in this attempt, but there is nobody else left to be the champions of "truth, justice and the (democratic / American) way".  

  Ha ha.  That old lie.  As you yourself have repeated argued you see the US as a moral free zone dominated by corruption and short term self interest of powerful groups with contempt for the population of the US let alone anyone else.  As such being exceptionally stupid as your claiming to be could be the case but there's no question of morality or justice about it.

[miletus12]

Dec 10, 2022 13:52:15 GMT stevep said:

Ha ha.  That old lie.

GEO-political power comes out of the end of an SS-20 or a Trident D-5, Steve.

[stevep]

Dec 10, 2022 13:57:29 GMT miletus12 said:

Dec 10, 2022 13:52:15 GMT stevep said:

Ha ha.  That old lie.

GEO-political power comes out of the end of an SS-20 or a Trident D-5, Steve.

  If your an idiot yes.  However that's irrelevant to my comment you seem to be replying to - other than by implicitly supporting my argument.

[miletus12]

Dec 10, 2022 14:10:39 GMT stevep said:

Dec 10, 2022 13:57:29 GMT miletus12 said:

GEO-political power comes out of the end of an SS-20 or a Trident D-5, Steve.

  If your an idiot yes.  However that's irrelevant to my comment you seem to be replying to - other than by implicitly supporting my argument.

You do realize that you are only free because there is a deterrent that actually is effective? Not one that would be ignored, but a guaranteed effective one. Cloudcuckoolanders do not accept that factual reality. 

As long as there are cloudcuckoolanders you need D-5s.  

[miletus12]

Dec 10, 2022 13:52:15 GMT stevep said:

I was referring to to argument being presented that the attempts to restrict Russian oil sales were some sort of European action and the US would intervene to block it when its well known that Washington is fully involved in the operation.

To that point, you missed the loophole in east Asia where Russia has a terminal and can ship oil to CHINA so long as the route is insured and the ships are covered.

To that end, the EU is powerless. It matters not a jot whether the USG agreed to EU action in EU waters, though you make my argument for me by writing the EU could do nothing without the US as its "muscle" in those waters. Thanks for that admission.

It is in the Pacific where I point out the only game to counter the loophole is American. GEO-politics.

[stevep]

Dec 10, 2022 14:41:42 GMT miletus12 said:

Dec 10, 2022 13:52:15 GMT stevep said:

I was referring to to argument being presented that the attempts to restrict Russian oil sales were some sort of European action and the US would intervene to block it when its well known that Washington is fully involved in the operation.

To that point, you missed the loophole in east Asia where Russia has a terminal and can ship oil to CHINA so long as the route is insured and the ships are covered.

To that end, the EU is powerless. It matters not a jot whether the USG agreed to EU action in EU waters, though you make my argument for me by writing the EU could do nothing without the US as its "muscle" in those waters. Thanks for that admission.

It is in the Pacific where I point out the only game to counter the loophole is American. GEO-politics.

  Which is the direct contradiction of your initial post where you were supporting his fallacy that this price cap was a European operation that the US had no part in.  Please try and keep track of what your actually saying.