For as long as I can remember, it's always been "The US" vs the world, well before Trump made this observation. I've heard the most moronic excuses locally here in NZ about why there's been bias against Americans? One being, during war times, Americans were known to come and impregnate our women. This view would be synonymous over in Europe as many tourists i've met from those regions have a similar view. Over the years living in NZ, I put it down to simple jealousy, and certainly not recent issues like Trump is voicing this out. I even recall watching 80s movies where Americans were portrayed negatively in the rest of the world (in pop culture) ; this is nothing new.Originally Posted by Bjauck
Some reading: https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/07/10...the-same-time/
Now for some hard figures:
https://tradingeconomics.com/europea...per-capita-ppp $38K
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-...per-capita-ppp $55K
During my last year at uni we did a study on the European Union model. We also debated on the issues & roles of the UN, NATO, WTO, etc. Perhaps the best years of my study because a lot of it had little to do with text book studies and more with real world issues. This was in 1997 before the EU currency was about to be floated. For the UN, the conclusion we based was it was a 'useless' organisation. Some 20 years later and they still prove to be useless against global conflicts.. yet we criticized why the US continued to fund most of the UN's budget. Took until 2016 when Trump came in for the US gov't to realise this problem. and we look at issues like the WTO and NATO - again all organisations with their shortfalls. Canada for years has lodged complaints with the WTO against the US but somehow, the WTO can't impose binding laws against the US. Wow! is this not a surprise?
But for the most compelling issue is the formation of the EU. What was it's motive, it's role? why? We came down again, to the simple conclusion. They wanted to adopt a model that the USA has used for the past 200+ years. A "Unification of States". Yet we saw so many shortfalls. Europe has a diverse mix of cultures and languages, many that maintain conflicts that had gone for generations. You have a huge gap between the haves and the have not nations within Europe. Then there's sovereign debt issues that never was marked by the ECB - that is, the EU nations never 'consolidated their debt' - you have Italy that claims debt from Germany over the war years. The US had sorted their debt consolidation centuries ago. Martin Armstrong talks a lot about the EU monetary problems and debt financing on various member states:
"There is no real EU unity behind the curtain which is when the debt was NEVER consolidated from day one. They wanted a single currency, but not a single responsibility for the debt."
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/i...tion-of-debts/
and from a 3rd reporting of Mr. Martin:
https://snbchf.com/2017/02/martin-ar...isintegration/
"Every nation including the United States should consider the success of Switzerland and its small government. They provide the ideal example of democracy in action and how to rid society of bureaucratic corruption."
Switzerland is not part of the EU and seems to be holding well. (helps to have all that money as a once tax free haven nation). But to have greater nations like UK to pull the lion share and propping up poor EU nations is not going to work in the long term. Germany being the largest economy is getting the short end of the stick by being part of the EU.
A lot more can be discussed about the issues of the EU - but from what the EU model was intentionally meant to do... we're witnessing the model falling apart.
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