Congressional supporters of Ukraine say they won’t give up after a bill to keep the federal government open excluded President Joe Biden’s request for more security assistance for the war-torn nation.
Honestly strategically, it’s stupid not to. But I sit here on my high horse, where we are used to sacrificing an enormous amount of tax dollars on military prowess and have the military wealth of like all nations combined. But hey we go bankrupt if we go to the doctors… so there is that.
I guess my rambling point is it sounds good in theory, but it’s a huge sacrifice.
The US would be able to spend more on the military with all the money saved on socialised medicine. Private medicine is about corporations taking a cut, not saving govt money.
Americans get swindled big time by weapon manufacturers colluding with government contract drafters, and pharmaceutical companies colluding with medical insurance appraisers and hospitals to raise fictional treatment costs through the roof. All that, while having a taxation pressure pretty much on par with the average in the EU.
So far, the EU has managed to avoid the medical racketeering, it isn’t unthinkable that it could also avoid the weapons racketeering… unless it keeps buying overpriced shit from the US big bully in town, instead of investing in it’s own manufacturing.
An EU military, with weapons produced in the EU, would be a huge loss for the US, not necessarily much of a sacrifice for the EU.
The problem for the EU is they don’t exactly have a sovereign currency, at least not the way The US, UK, AU, CA, and China have. We can always pay more, because the government can just “print more money.” I don’t know if the EU can really do that with the Euro. They should be able to, but they don’t seem to function the way our Federal Government does.
The ECB is more independent, but that doesn’t really matter. The EU can borrow from it just like the US government does from the Federal Reserve, and the ECB’s mandate is to stabilize inflation, no matter what the EU does.
If the EU decided to borrow massive amounts of Euros to spend on weapon manufacturing and creating its own military, that would have massive ripples on the whole economy and impact inflation, but the ECB would just have to follow.
The only real difference is in foreign monetary policy: the ECB doesn’t have to listen to EU Parliament’s wishes to change monetary policy in order to weaponize it, while central banks in the US, UK, AU, China, etc. do have to listen to their respective government’s wishes to mess up the internal economy for whatever reason they see convenient.
Thanks for the explanation. I’m an American, so trying to keep our politics straight is a full time job. I haven’t had much opportunity to really look at the alternatives.
America never was a trustworthy partner. They start wars and raise dictatorships all over the world. Trump just showed they werent trustworthy in economical treaties either.
The problem is that politics do not stop at the border. Support for Ukraine has become yet another culture war, us-vs-them battleground. It doesn’t really matter what the issues are anymore, only that there has to be conflict over them to keep attention whores in the news cycle.
If we disband alliances and rely on individual armies, you’ll very quickly see that we’re back to the middleages, where the smaller countries are eaten by bigger countries ad infinitum.
Macron was right, but being right is extremely expensive. Meanwhile, the EU’s dependence on F-35s for defence isn’t too great given the well-known issues with F-35 maintenance and the need for US private contractors in the maintenance loop.
I wonder if it would happen with NATO partners as well. If the US elects another (or previous) moron, the partnership could end on a similar whim.
Idk, I feel like the US not a very stable or trustworthy partner. Maybe Macron was right, maybe the EU does need it’s own army.
Honestly strategically, it’s stupid not to. But I sit here on my high horse, where we are used to sacrificing an enormous amount of tax dollars on military prowess and have the military wealth of like all nations combined. But hey we go bankrupt if we go to the doctors… so there is that.
I guess my rambling point is it sounds good in theory, but it’s a huge sacrifice.
The US would be able to spend more on the military with all the money saved on socialised medicine. Private medicine is about corporations taking a cut, not saving govt money.
Spending doesn’t mean quality or even quantity.
Americans get swindled big time by weapon manufacturers colluding with government contract drafters, and pharmaceutical companies colluding with medical insurance appraisers and hospitals to raise fictional treatment costs through the roof. All that, while having a taxation pressure pretty much on par with the average in the EU.
So far, the EU has managed to avoid the medical racketeering, it isn’t unthinkable that it could also avoid the weapons racketeering… unless it keeps buying overpriced shit from the US big bully in town, instead of investing in it’s own manufacturing.
An EU military, with weapons produced in the EU, would be a huge loss for the US, not necessarily much of a sacrifice for the EU.
The problem for the EU is they don’t exactly have a sovereign currency, at least not the way The US, UK, AU, CA, and China have. We can always pay more, because the government can just “print more money.” I don’t know if the EU can really do that with the Euro. They should be able to, but they don’t seem to function the way our Federal Government does.
The ECB is more independent, but that doesn’t really matter. The EU can borrow from it just like the US government does from the Federal Reserve, and the ECB’s mandate is to stabilize inflation, no matter what the EU does.
If the EU decided to borrow massive amounts of Euros to spend on weapon manufacturing and creating its own military, that would have massive ripples on the whole economy and impact inflation, but the ECB would just have to follow.
The only real difference is in foreign monetary policy: the ECB doesn’t have to listen to EU Parliament’s wishes to change monetary policy in order to weaponize it, while central banks in the US, UK, AU, China, etc. do have to listen to their respective government’s wishes to mess up the internal economy for whatever reason they see convenient.
Thanks for the explanation. I’m an American, so trying to keep our politics straight is a full time job. I haven’t had much opportunity to really look at the alternatives.
America never was a trustworthy partner. They start wars and raise dictatorships all over the world. Trump just showed they werent trustworthy in economical treaties either.
The problem is that politics do not stop at the border. Support for Ukraine has become yet another culture war, us-vs-them battleground. It doesn’t really matter what the issues are anymore, only that there has to be conflict over them to keep attention whores in the news cycle.
Everybody needs their own army. Otherwise they are too dependent on those who have, and that’s not just the USA, that includes also plenty of vermin.
If we disband alliances and rely on individual armies, you’ll very quickly see that we’re back to the middleages, where the smaller countries are eaten by bigger countries ad infinitum.
That’s not what I said, first. Second, smaller countries are eaten when the alliances they rely on turn out to be all puff.
Macron was right, but being right is extremely expensive. Meanwhile, the EU’s dependence on F-35s for defence isn’t too great given the well-known issues with F-35 maintenance and the need for US private contractors in the maintenance loop.
Its* own army.