Comments by "Aaron Okeanos" (@AaronOkeanos) on "Why Europe’s Economy is Doing Better than You Think" video.

What's with the rumor that the American growth is artifical done by the extreme military spending since the Ukraine War started? The military budget gets bigged up massivly each year plus extra payments to Ukraine and Israel and Taiwan largely coming back in form of military equipment purchases. The problem is this is not like infrastructure an investment it is simply burning money. Same with the immense subsidies to industries which not really need it like oil and semiconductors distorting the market and wasting tax-money for already extremly profitable companies who should generate tax-income. How long can this maintained and how can the blacklash of this look like?
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@craigwiz Have you ever considered that America simply don't want to because these remaining few military bases are strategic. America closed more than 95% of it's bases in central Europe post cold war. There is not much more to close without losing strategic advantages.
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0.3% of combined 15,800,000 x 1,000,000$ (EU27 GDP 2024) is quite a lot of growth. See this is the problem with these comparisons 3% of 100$ is just 3$. But 0.3% of 10,000 are 30$.
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And? In Germany plastic bottles (PET) are subject to a money-based recycling system for years. People bring them back to the supermarkets usually into a machine who scans them and give you a coupon.
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Sure the US can reduce it's military spending from 3.8% to 2.0% if they so wish. But for some reason they don't want to. But you have to tell that question to Congress. Both parties keep voting for this.
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@craigwiz You realize these countries have their own bases?! You expect bases of another country (BTW only America does this) to be run and paid for by the country it is in? This sounds like building a wall and let the other country pay for it. If you no longer want the bases leave!
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Not according to numbers. They say "minimal growth".
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I think we need smarter metrics to measure "economic wellbeing". It's a complicated topic but what we see right now is that the existing metrics have nothing to do with lived reality anymore.
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Financial Markets and real economy are decloupled for a while. Definitly since Covid as everyone could see (economy closed but financial market still growing) probably even before that.
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Warning: Russo-Troll vibes. America is free to reduce it's current military spending from 3.8% GDP to 2.0% practically half the military budget per year. But they don't want to. This has nothing to do with Europe. In NATO no money is transfered between countries. You are supposed to spend 2% of your GDP into your own military but no NATO member is paying for another.
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@oliverpapai6011 This is just the initial rush. It will disappear to normal levels. And it will lead to more recycling and less plastic trash both is economical and ecological sensible.
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